 Back in late 2004 Alexei Nikiforov (at that time –co-founder and general director of Baikal Discovery, Irkutsk, Russia) and Andreas Kiefer (of Baikal Express Gmbh., Germany) as adventure & sustainable tourism partners and friends alike had already in mind to start the Baikal Marathon along the lake’s shore. Initially they wanted to hold it in late summer time to make it more traditional, like other classical marathons in the world, and in order to involve more potential runners. But one evening, sitting at the bar and enjoying warm conversation accompanied by a few cold Siberian beers they happened to have the Globe placed at their table. All over sudden they had noticed that the shape of Lake Baikal – the world’s deepest, largest in volume of fresh water, and oldest one – is easily recognizable on the world’s Globe, as well as the lake’s opposite shores were distinctly seen. “Why not to run across the Lake of Baikal from one shore to the opposite one instead of running along the shore? Look, in the southern Baikal the distance between the western and eastern shore is nearly same as in Marathon…We just need to add a couple or bit more kilometers…” That idea sounded very attractive. No need to mention there had been fewer local beers consumed by those two that historical evening to enable them choosing to run across Lake Baikal during summer or even late fall. One can’t run across the Holy Baikal waters unless if running on the frozen waters! i.e. when the water surface freezes. And the water on Lake Baikal solidly freezes only by the beginning of February. The idea to run entirely on frozen waters across the Baikal, above abyssal waters of Baikal (over 1400 m in the middle of future ice running course!) really made the two very enthusiastic.
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