Lake Naroch is the “pearl” of Belarusian land. It is so huge that in cloudy weather the opposite bank of the lake is lost in the haze, so that you seem to find yourself on a mysterious ancient seaside.

It is the largest natural body of water in Belarus. Its area is 79.6 square kilometers. The depths of Naroch are small with the depth average of 8.9 meters, and only in the south-east of Gatovsk pits, they reach almost 25 meters.

The length of Lake Naroch is 12.8 km, maximum width is 9.8 km, maximum depth is 24.8 meters, the length of the coastline is about 41 km. Water volume 710 million cubic meters. The catchment is 279 sq. m. km – 35% of the area under the lakes, 25% under the forest. 17 streams flow into the lake (Pronki, Kupa, Antonizberg, Simony, etc.) and a short river (flow) Skema fthe river Naroch flows out of Lake Myastro.

Lake Naroch is divided into Small reach (up to 18 meters depth in the north-west) and Large reach to the south-east, with a maximum depth of Gatovsk pits. Thebottom of the lake is relatively flat, however there are areas, raised almost up to the surface. Deep zone is lined with sapropel.

Naroch is situated at a height of 165 meters above sealevel. The slopes of the lake to the north and north-east are formed by natural levee of Svintsyany ridges 45-50 m in height, to the sounth a low South-Naroch ridge is adjacent to the lake. The banks are mainly low, sandy, steep and abrasive in some places, 2-11 meters in height, and to the south-east they are swamp and peat.

The coastal beach sand is partially silt, there is a lot of pebbles and boulders at the steep banks. 21% of the lake area is overgrown. The most overgrown is small reach, on the north-eastern part of which the growth width up to 2 km, in the Big Reach from 5 to 350 meters. Rushes, reeds grow up to the depth of 1.5-2 meters, covering less than 3% of the lake, the underwater vegetation, dominated by Stoneworts algae spread to a depth of 7.5 meters, takes 18% of the lake bottom.

One can say indeed that Lake Naroch takes the first place in Belarus in purity and clarity of water. The bottom, strewn with sand and stone can be seen up to 5-7 meters in summer and up to 10 meters winter. The transparency and purity of the water showed low forage qualities of the lake, but despite this fact, 25 species of fish, including pike, eel, bleak, tench, burbot, bream, Amur carp and others are found there. The catches are generally dominated by bream, pike and roach. The lake is also inhabited by common eel and Naroch whitefish (so-called selyava). The high quality of water allows breeding whitefish here, the fries withdrawn from the incubation eggs by a special fish nurseries - the ponds on the southern bank of the lake.

Throughout the whole year the water is well saturated in oxygen, mineralization is not less than 200 mg/ l.

A complex of conservational activities has been provided to preserve the richness of the lake. Water conservation area with a special usage mode of natural resources around the lake.

Fluctuation of the water level around the year are up to 40 or sometimes up to 70 cm. During the high water the area of the lake is increased at 2 %.

The water in Lake Naroch is surprisingly clean and transparent. When the weather is clear and unwind, you can easily see a diversity of habitats of the lake at a depth of six meters and if you are lucky, you can see apart from bleak, perch, roach, pike you can see catfish, whitefish and eel. The average temperature of the surface layer of water in summer vary within 2-3 °Ñ and reaches +23 °Ñ. The flora of Lake Naroch numbers up to 48 species of water vegetation.

Lake Naroch is covered with legends. One of them tells about the beautiful daughter of a forester, Galina. She lived in a hut with his father, and was with her fiancé Vasilyok, a handyman, who gave a magic mirror to his beloved. Once a beautiful woman Galina was noticed by a well-off man, and at night his servant kidnapped the girl. Vasilyok ran after them and took the bride with him, but on the way back they were overtaken by the chase. By sending his beloved home, the guy stayed ... Galina has been waiting for her fiancé for long. Finally, she decided to look into his mirror and then dropped it as she saw a dead Vasilyok in it. The magic mirror has been broken, and the smashed pieces were converted and overflowed three lakes: Naroch Glublya and Glubelka. Galina herself turned a white gull. Since then she is flying above the water, mourning her Vasilyok ...

Another legend tells of an orphan Nara, a wonderful beauty-girl. She loved to sing, sitting on the lake bank, and the well-off man was attracted to her so that his servant killed the fiancé of the beauty-girl, and she was forcibly brought to the palace. But Nara set the luxury mansion on fire and jumped out of the window. When the girl ran to the lake, the chase was not far away. Nara jumped into the boat and pushed off the bank of the lake. That night a terrible storm broke out, and since then Nara was not seen by anyone. But people have not forgotten about her. In honor of hers they gave the name to the largest and most beautiful lake – Naroch.