Issyk-Kul - the Mountain Pearl. The most beautiful and largest lake in Central Asia is Lake Issyk-Kul. It is located between the ridges of the Northern Tien Shan: the sun-facing Kungey Ala-Tuu and the sun-shaded Terskey Ala-Tuu at an altitude of 1609 m above sea level. Issyk-Kul is one of the largest mountain lakes in the world.
The lake is incredibly beautiful. For this reason, it is called the "Pearl of Kyrgyzstan." The high transparency and bright sun change the color of the water in Lake Issyk-Kul from light blue to dark blue tones. In winter, the water temperature is +4.2 to +5.0°C. In July and August, the upper layers of water warm up to +18 to +20°C. Even in the coldest winters, the lake does not freeze. Magnificent views of snow-capped peaks are visible from the northern shore of the lake. Eighty rivers and streams flow into the lake, but it has no outlet, making the water in the lake salty. There are legends about cities buried under the waters of Issyk-Kul. The mountains around the lake are almost unexplored.
The basin of the lake, surrounded on all sides by powerful mountain ranges, has long remained a hard-to-reach area of Kyrgyzstan. Now it can be reached by a road passing through the famous Boom Gorge, and there are also two airports in the basin: Cholpon-Ata, located near the resort town, and the international airport Tamchy, which was built and opened in the summer of 2003 on the site of a military airport.
Lake Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan
Here are some figures about this unique place, which attracts an increasing number of tourists: the total volume of water is 1738 km², the surface area of the water mirror is 6236 km², the length of the coastline is 688 km, the average depth is 278 m, while the maximum depth is almost 2.5 times greater at 668 m, the length of Issyk-Kul from West to East is 182 km, and from South to North is 58 km.
Over the last two centuries, the level of Issyk-Kul has been decreasing, resulting in both a reduction in depth and coastline length. According to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, since 1886 it has fallen by 4 m, while other sources report a drop of 9 m.
Due to the great depth of the lake, the water does not cool completely - the lake never freezes, except at some shores. Issyk-Kul translates from Kyrgyz as "Hot Lake." The ancient Kyrgyz called this pearl of the country "Tuz-Kul" - "Salty Lake" due to the brackish taste of the water, which is unsuitable for drinking for both humans and animals.
The lake is of tectonic origin, and due to the orographic isolation of the basin, the climate here is peculiar, almost marine. It is milder, warmer, and more humid than in other depressions of the Tien Shan located at the same altitude. In terms of thermal regime, Issyk-Kul is a subtropical lake. Here, on the shores of the lake in summer, it is moderately warm, and in winter, it is not cold. The average air temperature in January is minus 2 to minus 10 degrees, in July it is plus 17 to plus 18. The average water temperature in summer is plus 21 to plus 23, in winter it is minus 3 to minus 4. The western part of the basin is arid, with rare rains and almost no snowfall. In the western mountains surrounding the lake, only 115 mm of precipitation falls, while on the eastern shore, it is about 600 mm. However, in recent years, the amount of precipitation has increased - the effects of global warming are also noticeable in Kyrgyzstan.
More than 80 rivers and streams flow into the lake, but no river drains its waters from this azure lake, which leads to the accumulation of salts (water mineralization is 5.90%). The largest rivers flowing into the lake are Tyup (103 km) and Jergalan (81 km), while the lengths of the others do not exceed 50 km. Once, the Chu River, which flows along the western edge of the basin, also carried its waters into the lake.
The contrast of natural zones is diverse: in the east, there are steppes on dark chestnut soils, on the western slopes of the mountains - semi-desert, while in the east, at the same altitudes, especially in the gorges of Terskey Ala-Tuu, there are dense coniferous forests. The organic world of the lake is also diverse - about 20 species of fish inhabit it, 10 of which are acclimatized. In Issyk-Kul, you can find: chebak, carp, marinka, osman, zander, bream, mirror carp, white amur, amurdar trout, sivan trout, sig, and other fish.
The great Russian traveler P.P. Semenov-Tyan-Shansky was the first to explore the lake. He wrote about Issyk-Kul: "It is hard to imagine anything more grandiose than the landscape presented to the traveler from Kungey across the lake to the Heavenly Ridge. The dark blue surface of Issyk-Kul, with its sapphire color, can confidently compete with the equally blue surface of Lake Geneva, which seemed to me almost endless from the western side of Kungey to the east, and the incomparable grandeur of the last plan of the landscape gives it such magnificence that Lake Geneva does not possess."
The famous Russian traveler and scientist, researcher of Central Asia, N.M. Przhevalsky, fell in love with this land and asked to be buried on the shores of the lake. After seeing the beauties of Kyrgyzstan, he said: "This is the same Switzerland, only better." After Przhevalsky's death, a city located near the traveler's grave was named in his honor. Later, after the collapse of the USSR, Przhevalsk was renamed Karakol. The city has a museum dedicated to Przhevalsky.