Lake Sinara

Lake Sinara is a large lake of tectonic origin in the Kasli district of Chelyabinsk Oblast, on the border with the Snezhinsk urban district, a few kilometers from the city of Snezhinsk. The lake stretches from northwest to southeast for about 8 kilometers, its width ranges from 1 to 5.5 kilometers (other sources give 4 to 6 kilometers), and its water surface covers roughly 24 square kilometers. The shoreline is 26 kilometers long, and the lake holds about 158.6 million cubic meters of water. It lies at an elevation of 246 meters above sea level.

Nature

The lake's average depth is 6.5 meters, with a maximum of 14.2 meters. The bottom is mostly rocky, with sandy patches in places, and the water is clear to a depth of about 3 meters. The shores are steep and rocky. The lake has a single small island, called Sredny, also known as Zmeiny (Snake Island). On the western shore rises Mount Teplaya, 342 meters high. The Sinara River flows out of the lake. The shores are covered with pine and birch forest. The lake is home to perch, ruffe, pike, bream, whitefish, roach, crucian carp and tench; in the early 20th century, from 1911 to 1914, fish breeder Ivan Kuchin stocked the lake with Chud whitefish.

History

In 1932 geologists found a scatter of large plagioclasite blocks with light-blue corundum crystals south of the lake, and in the 1940s a vein of vermiculite-corundum rock was explored at the same site. On the southern shore of the lake, at Cape Nebasky, archaeologist G. V. Beltikova discovered the Sinarskoye I hillfort in 1998. On the eastern shore, in the village of Vozdvizhenka, the ruins of an old distillery and a manor house survive.

Legends

A legend ties the lake's name to the love story of a girl named Sinara and a young man named Shakhan. There are other versions of the name's origin as well: one traces it to the word "señora", another to the Bashkir name Chinara, which over time turned into Sinara. Pavel Bazhov's tale "Inscription on the Stone" tells of the tragic love of a French artist for a Russian girl, a story associated with this area.

Getting there

Lake Sinara lies near the Yekaterinburg-Chelyabinsk highway: turn off following the sign to the village of Voskresenskoye. Buses run to Voskresenskoye; from the village it is about 4-5 kilometers on foot to the lake. The southern shore of the lake adjoins the closed city of Snezhinsk. Cafes operate along the shores, and the lake is a popular recreation and fishing spot for residents of Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg and Snezhinsk.