Botkul

Botkul is a shallow, bitter-saline lake in the northern Caspian lowland, east of the Volga. It lies in a broad depression among the dry grasslands and semi-desert, without an outlet to the sea. Its extent changes with the water supply, and in dry years much of the lake can shrink to salt mud. Along with Elton and other saline basins of the region, it marks a landscape where evaporation leaves mineral salts concentrated in the soil and water.