A beautiful morning. Clear sky, sun, freshness, the air filled with the scent of flowers and blooming shrubs like wormwood. Only my soul feels somehow unsettled, anxious, and I can’t tell why. I read Lyusenka’s message, and my heart felt lighter. “We love you for our whole lives. We wish you successful work. Don’t worry about trifles, take care of yourself.” This is now the formula of my life on board.

Valentin Vitalyevich Lebedev shortly after his 211-day flight.

We did our morning exercises. I think we’ll rest well here. Today I need to plan out my work in preparation for the flight — no one will do it for me.

We’re working in the MIK, the Assembly and Testing Building, on the transport ship. I was impressed by the sanitary-epidemiological service: we’re fully shielded from people; only select specialists who have passed screening have access to us. Our future spacecraft, Soyuz T-5, is in good condition — there were almost no issues. I was struck by the feeling of calm inside the ship we’ll be flying — there wasn’t even any excitement from being close to our machine. Apparently, the long preparation and training have dulled the sharpness of sensation; this even disappointed me. In the evening, returning to our site where we’re living, we saw cows, horses, and camels grazing along the road, and a donkey. The steppe is still green, though there’s plenty of yellow from last year’s grass. Tulips are visible — yellow, orange — but there aren’t many. At our site, apple trees are blooming along with decorative bushes; morning and evening there’s an astonishing fragrance, like being in an open field. The air is spiced and intoxicating, like in the tales of A Thousand and One Nights. And large stars overhead — Auriga. After arriving, I played tennis with trainer Yura Masyukov against Tolya and crew doctor Zhenya Kobzev; we won. In the evening we watched the film “The Heist of the Century” — harmless nonsense.