Lake Tavatui, also known as Lake Tavatuy, is a freshwater lake in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia. Several communities surround the lake and the nearest major city is

Yekaterinburg Yekaterinburg (, ; ), alternatively Romanization of Russian, romanized as Ekaterinburg and formerly known as Sverdlovsk ( ; 1924–1991), is a city and the administrative centre of Sverdlovsk Oblast and the Ural Federal District, Russia. The ci ...

. The lake is known for its high water quality and is a popular tourist attraction. The a website operated by the Russian Federal Agency for Tourism calls it "the pearl of the

Middle Urals The Ural Mountains ( ),; , ; , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range in Eurasia that runs north–south mostly through Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural and northwestern Kazakhstan.

Description

The lake basin was formed by the gradual movement of plate tectonics, and lies on top of a thick bed of granite, the Verh-Isetskiy granite massif. Core samples taken from the lakebed show evidence of the lake's granite foundation forming during the

Late Pleistocene The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as the Upper Pleistocene from a Stratigraphy, stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division ...

into the

Early Pliocene Early may refer to: Places in the United States * Early, Iowa, a city * Early, Texas, a city * Early Branch, a stream in Missouri * Early County, Georgia * Fort Early, Georgia, an early 19th century fort Music * Early B, stage name of Jamaican d ...

era. Lake Tavatui is bordered by a number of tall hills and parts of the lake's shore is interspersed with granite outcroppings. Though geographically old, the lake's body of water is relatively young, having been formed by retreating glaciers between 10 and 20 thousand years ago. The glaciers' retreat also left a rich sedimentary bed of clay in the lake, and this sediment has been used to study the state of the ancient environment of the

Holocene The Holocene () is the current geologic time scale, geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene to ...

era.Maslennikova, A. V., V. N. Udachin, D. V. Pirogov, and P. V. Khvorov. "Paleolimnological reconstruction of Late Glacial and Holocene environments of Middle Urals." ''LITHOSPHERE (Russia)'' 6 (2016): 166-176. Lake Tavatui has an elongated shape running north to south, as it is and only wide; the total area of the lake is around . The lake is around deep, and contains several islands. The lake is well known for its high water quality and clarity, with the lake bed being visible from the surface in some conditions. The lake is warmest during the early summer months, cools during later summer months into the Ural fall, and freezes over between October and May during the intense Ural winter. Human activity at Lake Tavatui likely began in the Holocene era, soon after the glaciers had begun to retreat. According to one source, the lake's name likely derives from several words in the Tartar language, ''tau'' (translating to ''mountain'') and ''tui'' translating to ''feast''. Other sources attribute the name of the lake to the Permians and Komi, with the peoples' word for waterway ''ta wa tui'' being translatable to ''waterway''.

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Description

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See also