Abstract. During the last years major progress in the reconstruction of the climatic and environmental history of Northern Eurasia has been made within the scope of the Russian-German project PLOT. The project aimed at investigating the regional responses of the quaternary climate and environment on external forcing and feedback mechanisms along a more than 6000 km long longitudinal transect crossing Northern Eurasia. The well-dated record from Lake El gygytgyn used as reference site for comparison the local climatic and environmental histories. Seismic surveys and sediment coring up to 54 m below lake floor performed on Ladoga Lake (North-West of Russia), Lake Bolshoye Shchuchye (Polar Ural), Lake Levinson-Lessing and Lake Taymyr (Taymyr Peninsula), Lake Emanda (Yana Highlands). Here, we present the major results of the project with a special focus on lake-level fluctuations and forcing mechanisms.