Привет! Warm greetings from Russia!

Postcard itself

This is a postcard from Russia, and the picture on it shows Lake Baikal, which is a rift lake located in southern Russia.

Lake Baikal is here.

The lake

Lake Baikal, meaning ''the Nature Lake'' in Mongolian, is the largest freshwater lake by volume in the world, and is the deepest one as well. By research, Lake Baikal has been on the earth for more than 25 millions years. This makes it older than any other lakes in the world. What's more, it is regarded as the world's clearest lake. By the way, it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.

Creatures

Lake Baikal has such a high biodiversity that it is home to thousands of species of plants and animals, among them including several endemic species. For instance, the Baikal seal is one of three entirely freshwater seal all over the world. It can be found throughout Lake Baikal, but in nowhere else.

The Baikal seal

Another examples are the Baikal black grayling and the Baikal white grayling, they are found only in  Lake Baikal and rivers draining into the lake.

The Baikal black grayling and the Baikal white grayling

In terms of human, on the eastern side of the lake live Buryat tribes, who make a living by raising livestock.

Stamps on it

It seems that countries usually prefer using pictures of famous people, impressive architectures and local animals as  their stamps.

All of the stamps used on this card are issued in 2008. From left to right, they are Yaroslavl Region, Penzenskaya Region and Sverdlovsk Region respectively. You might think it  is so strange to see a picture of a tire on a stamp. Actually, it symbolizes that Yaroslavl is an important industrial city of Russia.

Language

''Привет''[Privet] , which means ''Hello'' , is a common informal greeting in Russian.