Dead Lake is located in the National Park Skolivskie Beskidy, near waterfall Kamenka. A wooden sign reading «Lake Crane Lake» (the second name of the Dead Lake) points upwards. It takes about fifteen minutes to scrape up a narrow pre-Carpathian path up the hill. We pass a voiced brook framed by bright colors.
The lake greets us with silence. Not without reason they call it Dead. You can’t even hear frogs croaking, which is so habitual for swampy water bodies. The water in the lake is saturated with gases that kill all living things. There are no fish here either. The trees around stand silent, as if enchanted. Once in a while you hear the frightened voice of a bird, probably they are afraid to come here.
The lake is really dead, grass and trees grow along the shores, and in the lake itself there is no algae or cassava, fish and various insects do not live there either. At the bottom of the lake there are hydrogen sulfide springs. The fallen trees do not rot in the water, but continue to lie along the shores.
There’s not a single wave on the water. It resembles a big oil slick. Here and there a branch «hangs» on the water… They say that a tree that was «bought up» in this lake will never rot.
The Dead Lake is known as a mystic. It is said that local witch doctors used its water to prepare their drinks. Legend has it that once upon a time a nice girl drowned in this body of water. She was in love with a guy, he was also in love with his lubka. But something happened between them, they were in a quarrel. Out of desperation the girl rushed into the water and became a mermaid. The guy then often came to this place, sat on the shore, mourned and played the whistle. They say that if you listen to the silence, you can hear the light sound of the whistle and the mermaid singing.