A Lake Weekend: Bolshoy Kisegach and Uvildy

Description

A quiet weekend on the two best-known lakes of the Southern Urals, eighty kilometres apart. Both are tectonic, both are natural monuments, but their characters differ: Kisegach is resort-like and strictly protected at once, Uvildy is granite, island-studded and deep. Bolshoy Kisegach lies five kilometres northwest of Chebarkul: fourteen square kilometres of mirror, depth up to thirty-four metres with water clarity to ten. The lake basin is funnel-shaped — a form rare in the Urals, because of which bottom water stays ten to thirteen degrees colder than the surface even in summer. Eleven islands sit on the water — Bolshoy, Vysoky, Lipovy, Sosnenky and others; since 1926 the Kisegach sanatorium with sapropel muds and mineral waters has operated on the southern shore, while the western shore borders the Ilmen Nature Reserve, the oldest in the Urals. Uvildy is the largest and deepest lake of the oblast: sixty-eight square kilometres, thirty-eight metres of depth, clarity of six to eight metres. The water is high in radon, with radon springs and a clinic on the shore. Islands are the lake’s legendary feature: Pyotr Rychkov wrote of “five hundred” of them in 1762; today they are counted in dozens. The best plan is the quiet northern shore near the Ripus settlement with its granite capes, away from the sanatorium south. On both lakes the water warms slowly, so the swimming season is short; paddleboards are at their best in calm weather, when the full clarity of the water is on display. Kisegach’s islands close to visitors during the nesting season, and the western shore is approached only along the reserve’s permitted trails.