Lake Baikal

Polly woke up on the fifth morning and the world had become water.

Polly sa zobudila na piaty deň a svet sa premenil na vodu.

The train was running along the southern shore of Lake Baikal. The lake filled the entire window: not a lake so much as a sea, except for the perfect stillness and the impossible clarity of the colour, which was a blue that seemed to start somewhere deep below the surface and rise up.

Vlak sa pohyboval pozdĺž južného pobrežia jazera Bajkal. Jazero zaplnilo celé okno: nebolo to jazero, ale skôr more, okrem dokonalej nehybnosti a nemožnej jasnosti farby, ktorá bola modrá, akoby začínala niekde hlboko pod povrchom a stúpala nahor.

Igor, the fisherman, had been awake for two hours. He was at the window with a small notebook.

Igor, rybár, bol hore už dve hodiny. Stál pri okne s malým zápisníkom.

"Baikal," he said. "It is the deepest lake in the world. One thousand six hundred and forty-two metres at its deepest point. It is also the oldest lake. Twenty-five million years old. Most lakes fill in with sediment over time. Baikal is in a rift valley that is still growing. The bottom drops faster than the sediment can fill it."

"Bajkal," povedal. "Je to najhlbšie jazero na svete. Tisíc šesťsto štyridsaťdva metrov v najhlbšom bode. Je to aj najstaršie jazero. Dvadsaťpäť miliónov rokov staré. Väčšina jazier sa časom zaplní sedimentom. Bajkal je v riftovom údolí, ktoré stále rastie. Dno klesá rýchlejšie, než ho sediment dokáže zaplniť."

The water outside was so clear that Polly could see boulders on the lake floor in the shallow areas. The clarity is up to forty metres in the right conditions.

Voda vonku bola taká jasná, že Polly mohla vidieť balvany na dne jazera v plytkých oblastiach. Jasnosť dosahuje až štyridsať metrov za správnych podmienok.

"It also holds," Igor said, "twenty-three percent of all the unfrozen fresh water on Earth. More than all the North American Great Lakes combined."

"Tiež obsahuje," povedal Igor, "dvadsaťtri percent všetkej nezamrznutej sladkej vody na Zemi. Viac než všetky Veľké jazerá Severnej Ameriky dokopy."

Polly looked at the lake. It did not look like twenty-three percent of anything. It looked like a single still blue thing.

Polly sa pozrela na jazero. Nevyzeralo ako dvadsaťtri percent niečoho. Vyzeralo ako jediná nehybná modrá vec.

The train stopped at Slyudyanka station. Igor got off. He shook Polly's wing tip with two fingers, gravely. "Three days fishing. Then home." He waved through the window and was gone.

Vlak zastavil na stanici Sľjudjanka. Igor vystúpil. Vážne potriasol Polly krídlom dvoma prstami. "Tri dni rybolovu. Potom domov." Zamával cez okno a bol preč.

For three more hours, the train ran the shore. A group of Baikal seals popped their heads above the surface a kilometre offshore. They are the world's only purely freshwater seal species.

Ešte tri hodiny vlak bežal pozdĺž pobrežia. Skupina tuleňov bajkalských vystrčila hlavy nad hladinu kilometer od brehu. Sú to jediné čisto sladkovodné tulene na svete.

Polly thought about scale. Below her was water older than her species. Inside that water was a tiny pink shrimp called Epischura that did not exist anywhere else on Earth. It kept the lake clear. It had been keeping it clear for twenty million years.

Polly premýšľala o mierke. Pod ňou bola voda staršia než jej druh. V tej vode bol malý ružový kôrovec nazývaný Epischura, ktorý neexistuje nikde inde na Zemi. Udržiaval jazero čisté. Udržiaval ho čisté už dvadsať miliónov rokov.