Zaisan Lake, also known as Zaisan Lake, is located in the upper reaches of the Irtysh River and is a typical freshwater swallowing lake.

The Irtysh River originates on the border between China and Mongolia. After flowing for more than 500 kilometers in China's Xinjiang Province, it finally broke through the mountain blockade between the Altai Mountains and the Tarbagatai Mountains in northern Xinjiang, roaring all the way into the Zaysan Basin and forming a lake about 110 kilometers long and 30 kilometers wide in this basin.

This lake is Zaisan Lake.

Before 1959, the area of ​​Zaisan Lake was only about 1,800 square kilometers, with an average depth of about 5 meters. After the clear water of the Irtysh River rushed out of the embrace of the mountains, it settled here, making Zaisan Lake a well-known fertile land.

This area with abundant water and grass has belonged to China for thousands of years. However, in October 1864, China and Russia signed the Sino-Russian Treaty of the Northwest Boundary. Russia used diplomatic fraud to distort the relevant contents of the Sino-Russian Beijing Treaty and threatened with force, and eventually ceded a total of 440,000 square kilometers of land east and south of Lake Balkhash and north and south of Lake Zaysan.

From then on, this beautiful land became the territory of the Russian bear.

After the October Revolution in Russia, the red giant stood up and prepared to build reservoirs and hydropower stations in the upper reaches of the Irtysh River to utilize the abundant water resources in the upper reaches of the Irtysh River.

The project started in 1953, and the construction of the dam began about five kilometers upstream of the town of Sherebryansk on the Irtysh River. The dam is a concrete gravity dam with a maximum height of 90 meters and a crest length of 380 meters. On the east side of the dam, there is a one-way four-level ship lock.

The dam was completed in 1959. After its completion, due to the existence of the dam, a new, huge reservoir, the Bukhtamar Reservoir, was formed in the more than 330-kilometer river channel upstream of the dam, including Lake Zaysan.

The Bukhtamar Reservoir covers an area of ​​5,490 square kilometers, making it the largest artificial reservoir in Kazakhstan and the fifth largest artificial reservoir in the world. Even in the Soviet era, this reservoir was second only to the Kuibyshev Reservoir, which covers an area of ​​6,450 square kilometers in the middle reaches of the Volga River and the lower reaches of the Kama River, ranking second among all artificial reservoirs in the former Soviet Union.

After the completion of the Bukhtamar Reservoir, the average water depth of Zaisan Lake increased from 5 meters to 12 meters, and the deepest area of ​​the entire Bukhtamar Reservoir is 80 meters deep. The total storage capacity of the entire reservoir is as high as 49.6 billion cubic meters, which is more than 10 billion cubic meters more than the storage capacity of China's Three Gorges Reservoir.

Now, Yang Jing and his team are driving in the Bukhtamar Reservoir.

Although it is also surrounded by mountains, the Buktamar Reservoir is much wider than the Ust-Kamenogorsk Reservoir we just passed. After driving out of the canyon where the reservoir is located, there is a huge water surface with a width of more than ten kilometers in front of us. This water area is only a small part of the entire reservoir, but it can accommodate the entire Tianqu urban area!

Yang Jing had seen the world's largest lake, the Caspian Sea, and had also been to the Xiaolangdi Reservoir. He even made an emergency landing at the Toledo Bend Reservoir in the United States, so he could be considered well-informed.

Although the water of the Caspian Sea is also very clear, it is a saltwater lake after all, so the color of the water is more like the ocean, that kind of blue. The water of the Xiaolangdi Reservoir and the Toledo Bend Reservoir is also quite clear, but it is still far from the water of the Buchtamar Reservoir.

The water in this reservoir is extremely clear. Under the sunlight, you can clearly see the fish swimming three or four meters underwater. After all, this is the upper reaches of the Irtysh River. The clear snow-capped mountain meltwater has hardly experienced any pollution and has gathered here, so the water here is naturally very clear.

(PS: Speaking of clear and crisp water, I suddenly remembered my trip to Sichuan last year. At that time, I went to Jiulong County under Kangding, a small county town surrounded by mountains, with the county government at an altitude of 3,000 meters. There is a newly developed scenic spot in Jiulong County, called "Wuxuhai Scenic Area". The scenery there is really pristine, surrounded by snow-capped mountains. The meltwater flowing down from the snow-capped mountains is really crisp and clean. I filled a jar of water and drank it directly. It was so crisp and sweet...)

And although it is already October and the temperature has become quite low, there is still a lot of green on the mountains around the reservoir. Those lush mountains and the clear and calm reservoir, like a mirror, complement each other. How can the scenery be described with just one word "beautiful"?

"The scenery here is so great! If I didn't have so many things to worry about, I would really like to live here for three to five years!" Yang Jing stood on the deck, admiring the surrounding scenery with joy, greedily breathing in the fresh air, and couldn't help but exclaim in admiration.

Old Ivan said with a smile: "Mr. Yang, you haven't seen better scenery yet. We came here by boat this time. If you are willing to stay a little longer, we can turn east from the fork in the reservoir in front and find a pier to stop. You can take a helicopter to Ziryanovsk in the east, and then start from that city and go east to the Katung Karagay National Nature Reserve. The scenery there is more beautiful than here! Of course, we can also continue to move forward and stop at Bolshaya Narymskoye when we reach the bend of the reservoir. From there, we can rent a car to Katung Karagay."

"Yo? Is the scenery in that reserve nice?"

"Very good. Although now is not the best time to travel, it is also very good to be able to see more snow-capped mountains."

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