Beautiful, bare Baikal A land of superlatives It's not featured in any naturist holiday brochures. But it should be. Siberia is one of the most beautiful places on the planet, a vast unspoilt forest and steppe land that is almost completely empty. It is a place of great excesses: not only is it the largest single region on the planet (roughly one-twelfth of all dry land), it is also home to the world's largest forest (the Taiga) and the world's largest freshwater lake. Lake Baikal is a complete one-off, an astonishing natural curiosity that has no equal. It is so big it's effectively an inland sea, and full of water so fresh and pure you can kneel on the shore and drink from your hands. And you're unlikely to make much impact by doing so: Lake Baikal contains nearly one-fifth of the world's entire supply of fresh water. Not only is it the world's biggest natural swimming pool, it gets even better for naturists. The land around the lake is almost entirely uninhabited along its 600 mile length. Once you've moved away from the small towns along the southern shores you are alone in the beautiful forest. Having made the journey there by train from Moscow (four nights on the trans-Siberian railway) I was determined to enjoy it as naturally as possible. Apart from anything else, there are no showers in second class on Russia's long-distance trains. And to answer your most pressing question: no, Siberia isn't always cold. When I visited in early September we had some glorious weather, quite typical for the time of year. I was still brown from summer in Europe and could have comfortably topped up my tan every day I was there. Straight to the sauna Most visitors come to Lake Baikal from the nearby city of Irkutsk, about an hour away by car. The nearest lakeside settlement is the pretty little village of Listvyanka. I'd decided to spend the best part of a week based there, and had arranged a room in a private house owned by a Russian lady and her charming mother. The best and biggest surprise was the Siberian sauna at the end of their garden. This is a sort of wet and dry sauna - it has a coal stove that warms the little wooden room up to a wonderful dry heat, but you also take in bowls of lake water to wash in, splash around and throw over yourself and each other. After a week on the train, I didn't take much convincing to give it a go. It was fabulous: the combination of heat and water gets you clean almost down to your skeleton. A couple of other visitors from Yorkshire were staying next door and asked me closely about how you used the sauna after I emerged looking flushed pink and slightly dazed. It was obvious they wanted to know the dress code, and I told them it was nudist! Not that you can see much anyway through the little windows, but they were happy with the answer. The presence of water in a sauna seems like an excellent idea. Why don't all saunas contain a big basin and a tap? The water drained away through gaps between the boards on the floor, presumably into the ground, so there was no chance of rotting or warping the structure.

The Siberian saunas have dry heat but you take in water for washing

Nude in a freshwater sea In addition to owning the most gratefully received sauna in the world, the Russian family were superb hosts, and in no time had found a guide to take me into the forest for a few days, camping overnight on a beach. Even after the sauna I knew the only place to get really naked and wet was the glorious Lake Baikal. Our guide, Sacha (Alexander in Russian), led a small group of Europeans on a two-day trek to the north of Listvyanka. Southern Siberia gets hot in the summer, and shudderingly cold in the winter. Lake Baikal, being such a vast reservoir of water, never really warms up properly from its deep-freeze treatment during half the year. It freezes so hard and so deep the Red Army laid a railway track across the ice during the second world war in order to create a short-cut for transporting troops. The water was about 12C when I visited but the warm sunshine and the long walks through the beautiful forest (the Taiga) made it look almost enticing when we came to camp. I explained to the guide that I didn't have anything to wear to go swimming - a coward's way of justifying naturism, but one that works remarkably well. He shrugged and gestured with his open arm to the vast empty expanse of water in front of me, smiling because he knew how cold it was. His smile froze when I got out my towel and walked down to the end of the stony beach where we were camping. I looked back and watched him hastily retrieved a bottle of vodka from his pack. I stripped off in the way you should in the company of non-naturists. Don't hesitate for a second, and under no circumstances look round to check people's reactions, particularly not once you're naked. It's a bit like the ostrich syndrome, if you're not bothered by them, it makes it far harder for them to be bothered by you. Never look furtive, don't crouch down, just carry on as normal. It really works. I would have stood in the sun for a few minutes but was aware my companions had accepted nudity on the condition that it was a necessity rather than a luxury. That was my fault, for being a coward, but at least they were entirely comfortable as long as I didn't overdo it. And it was their insistence on taking some pictures. In the right context, virtually everyone is comfortable with other people being naked. Anyway, within three steps I was quickly out of my depth, and almost completely paralysed by the sharp cold. But it was a magical moment, entering this glorious, vast reservoir of the purest, softest and definitely coldest water I'd yet found in nature. I did see some pictures in a promotional video that showed a couple of Scandinavian women swimming in the nude in an ice hole on the lake, which I felt rather detracted from my own achievement. But it was a rare and unique pleasure to immerse myself in this most natural of all freshwater lakes, and even to this day I still feel a tingle from the touch of the pure waters on my naked skin. I pushed out into the middle of the lake as my companions watched in amazement, and just about managed to straighten from the crouching doggy paddle into something resembling breast stroke. A few days later, travelling round the southern shore on the trans-Siberian railway I spotted a man lying in the nude on his towel reading a book. And just before the train headed away from the lake for the last time on its long journey to the east, I saw three girls running naked into the water. Whether they were hiding from the train or simply having fun I couldn't guess. But I remembered a local saying: Siberia has blessed as many people as it has cursed.

The fateful moment approaches: going naturist in nature's biggest freshwater lake

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