Woke up at 7, or rather, Tolya woke me. The thing is, in an hour the station refueling begins; we need to close the PrK intermediate chamber hatch and monitor the process. Slept little but not badly — I must have been very tired yesterday. We came on the air and reported that we were ready for refueling. The ground reminded us that on the next orbit there’s a TV session in which we’re to congratulate the residents of Kiev. We set up the lights and entered the communication zone.

We congratulated the people of Kiev and all of Soviet Ukraine on the splendid jubilee of their capital — its 1,500th anniversary. I said that the very date commands respect not only for the city but for the people who live in it. It’s probably no accident that a tradition arose of celebrating the great jubilees of cities, because behind those dates stand generations of people who built, defended, and rebuilt their cities. So it is with Kiev — 1,500 years have passed, and it remains young with the smiles of its residents, the greenery of its parks and streets, its handsome modern buildings alongside the ancient walls of the Kiev Lavra. I’ve been to Kiev only once, for two days, and I liked the city very much. And all my friends who visit Kiev always speak of it very warmly. On this day I want to wish you, dear people of Kiev, the same longevity for every family — and may it be measured not by your own single lifetime alone, but by the lives of your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and may they, just as you do, adorn their city and cherish its history.

Before lunch there were visual observations. We’re already reliably identifying the areas around the Red Sea, the Arabian Peninsula, the Mediterranean, the Black, Caspian, and Aral Seas. But getting oriented on the ground is still hard, especially since we’re mostly in gravitational stabilization.

At 4 PM we finished refueling and were cleared to resume work in the cargo ship. Unloading Progress in such a short timeframe — a day and a half to two days — is hard labor. We work with the hatch closed, since the compartment is crammed full of equipment. There’s no life-support system in there — just one fan and one lamp. Lots of particles floating about, since it’s impossible to clean them all out on the ground, and plenty of metal dust appears when you remove the delivered equipment. We’re rescued by good, cleverly designed tools — a socket wrench head on a hinged handle that lets your hand reach into very tight spaces, grip the bolt head, and unscrew without removing the wrench. The cargo ship compartment smells of lacquer, glue, rubber, and metal.

When you work for a long time without opening the hatch into the station, you start to feel your own breathing; your forehead gets damp. Considering the small volume and the fact that a person consumes 25 liters of oxygen per hour and exhales 20 liters of carbon dioxide, it makes sense.

You have to work in such tight spaces between instruments and structural frames that sometimes a thought flashes: what if I get stuck? You’d be calling for your crewmate, and he might not hear you — the cargo ship hatch is closed, and there’s noise in the station from the ventilators and running equipment.

It’s 2 AM now; we just finished unloading. My face is gleaming with fine silvery metal dust. Relations with Tolya these days have settled into a pattern — we barely interact beyond what’s necessary. Oh well — we can’t remake ourselves at this point. The main thing is the work. While unloading, I thought about what the most important thing is when two people find themselves alone, isolated from everyone — face to face. What allows them to preserve themselves and accomplish the work entrusted to them? Probably, above all, decency, industriousness, a kind attitude toward one’s comrade, shared breadth of interests — and all of that is our upbringing. I’m convinced that people of high inner culture, for all the contradictions in character — professional, occupational, or even social — will, for the sake of a common cause, find the right path of communication.