Batabat Gol — also called Ganli Gol, "Blood Lake", for the reddish algae that sometimes tints its shallows — sits in a high meadow above the Bichanak Pass at an altitude of about 2,400 metres. It is the headline attraction of the Batabat plateau and the reason most travellers come up here at all. The lake is small and shallow, ringed by snowmelt streams in spring and turning into a working summer pasture for shepherds by July.
The lake's peculiarity is its trio of low, grassy islands that drift slowly across its surface, propelled by wind and current. They are not true islands but rafts of peat and root mat that broke loose from the marshy margins, large enough to walk on but always shifting position. Combined with the panorama of the Zangezur range on the Armenian side, it makes for one of the more atmospheric corners of Nakhchivan.