Valentin Rasputin does a beautiful job writing Baikal. This piece is written in a very lyrical and intriguing manner, both informing and inspiring the reader. Rasputin depicts Lake Baikal as different from other natural landmarks, and at one point, claims it one of nature’s “favorites”.  For me, this begged the question of whether or not nature creates all natural environments equally, to be enjoyed equally by all, none objectively better than another. Early on in this piece, Rasputin writes, “How and with what can its beauty actually be compared? … each of us regards his own region as beloved and dear…From the time we are born we drink in the air, the salt, and the scenes of our homeland; these influence our character and shape our vital makeup to no small degree” (189). According to this view, maybe all of nature is created equally, but experienced differently, and even biasedly, by love who live in it. For instance, I might find that the beauty of my home environment is objectively better than the environment a couple of towns over. This seems right to me in many ways. However, there are some flaws in this view. I love my hometown and will always think that the ocean surrounding my tiny island is the most beautiful of them all, but I must admit that I believe this because of the personal attachment and emotional bond I have with it. I’ve traveled a great deal and have seen oceans must more beautiful than the Atlantic surrounding my island – the colors of the Indian and Atlantic oceans colliding at the very point of Cape Town, the sky above it, and backdrop behind it, were so obviously more beautiful than the ocean I’m used to here. According to this view posed by Rasputin, I should think there is nothing more beautiful than my island ocean, so why is it that, in some ways, I prefer the ocean in Cape Town? This leads me to Tolstoy’s quote:

“How, in the midst of nature’s charms, can feelings of malice and vengeance or the passion to destroy others like himself possibly remain entrenched in man? It seems that all evil in a person’s heart should vanish when it comes into contact with nature, this spontaneous expression of beauty and goodness” (192).

In my mind, I related this quote to the story of the colleague who becomes silent after witnessing the natural beauties of Lake Baikal. He clearly had a lasting life-altering experience that influenced the way he viewed and approached life thereafter, but can all people experience this, as Tolstoy hopes, or does it take a certain type? Maybe an open-minded person more in touch with nature is most capable of this transformative experience because it is obvious that not everyone experiences nature in the same way this colleague does. Looping back to my point of the island ocean versus the Cape Town ocean, maybe it is that I am more unfamiliar with the latter and thus have a greater appreciation from it; and from this, we might say that nature is created equal, and can be enjoyed equally by all, but that it does take a certain type of person, and maybe even some extent of removal from a place, for us to appreciate the full and true beauty of nature.