Didn’t sleep all night. My nerves are starting to fray, but I’m holding on. Got up in the morning feeling shattered, head aching. One salvation: press on the back of the skull and it eases. I don’t let it show and work calmly.

Today a familiar voice appeared on the line — operator Boris Andreyev, back from vacation. Time flies: the man has already enjoyed his entire leave, and we’re still flying. It goes fast when you look back.

I forced myself through the exercise, even though it was very hard. Tomorrow we have an experiment with “Piramig.” Started preparing. Time synchronization wouldn’t go through right away. Had to repeat it many times.

Visual observations are going poorly. In the evening I worked with the maps of the southern hemisphere that I’d observed; so far the results are not great because of the positioning. You want precision, and it’s not there. That ruins the mood. It’s good to do experiments that are supported by equipment.

We’re passing over the Caspian, crossing the lower Volga, the Aral ahead. The Baku area is clear. That mud volcano patch we observed yesterday has spread somewhat from the shore, silted up, turned brownish — or maybe it just seems that way because we’re passing at a distance. But the plankton patch in the southeastern Caspian has begun to disperse, though the color has stayed the same.

Right now we’re watching the start of a dust storm along our track, south of Lake Zaisan, about a quarter of the length of the Bukhtarma Reservoir. You can see the wind tearing up masses of sand and carrying them east, forming a tail from the point where the storm begins. It fans out at an angle of about 55 degrees and curves to the right. Behind the tail stands an orange-brown curtain; a huge mass of sand has been lifted into the air, as if a gigantic machine is driving against the wind, raising dust.

Completed experiment M78 with the magnetogravistat. “Oasis” is working well. The first shoots have appeared; they’re a pleasure to look at — like little children, fresh and green. At night, flying over the USSR in an unoriented position, I looked out a side porthole. The sensation was that the Earth stood vertically, and on it the cities were like enormous Christmas trees draped in garlands of light, with strings of bright highway lamps. Time for bed. The voice recorder has floated away, along with a movie camera filter. I don’t know what to do — I tossed a few scraps of paper and sat watching where the airflow takes them. That’s where I’ll look.