It was formed by glacial melting at the end of the Ice Age. Major towns on the lakeshore include Lappeenranta, Imatra, Savonlinna, Mikkeli, Varkaus, and Joensuu. About 6000 years ago, ancient Lake Saimaa, estimated to cover nearly at the time, was abruptly discharged through a new outlet. The event created thousands of square kilometres of new residual wetlands. Following this event, the region saw a population maximum in the decades following only to later return to an ecological development towards old boreal conifer forests which saw a decline in population.
Topography
The Vuoksi River flows from Saimaa to Lake Ladoga. Most of the lake is spotted with islands, and narrow canals divide the lake in many parts, each having their own names. Thus, Saimaa exhibits all major types of lake in Finland at different levels of eutrophication. fortress on Lake Saimaa In places in the Saimaa basin, "there is more shoreline here per unit of area than anywhere else in the world, the total length being nearly. The number of islands in the region, 14,000, also shows what a maze of detail the system is."
Natural resources
An endangered freshwater seal, the Saimaa Ringed Seal, lives only at Saimaa. Another of the lake's endangered species is the Saimaa salmon. Due to its rich, easily accessible asbestos deposits, the shores of the lake are the most probable origin of asbestos-ceramic, a type of pottery made between c. 1900 BC – 200 AD. The areas around Saimaa lake are very popular location for summer cabins as well as lake cruises.
The Saimaa Canal from Lauritsala, Lappeenranta to Vyborg connects Saimaa to the Gulf of Finland. Other canals connect Saimaa to smaller lakes in Eastern Finland and form a network of waterways. These waterways are mainly used to transport wood, minerals, metals, pulp and other cargo, but tourists also use the waterways. on the right. The black line is the Russo-Finnish border.
Notable people
The Russian writerMaxim Gorky went into exile near the shores of Lake Saimaa for a period of time after his apartment was raided by the Black Hundreds in the aftermath of the Moscow Uprising of 1905. He wrote to his divorced wife Ekaterina, writing "it's beautiful here, like a fairy tale".
