In the morning we performed medical experiments. The doctors said that during the EVA my pulse ranged from 90 to 150 beats, and Tolya’s from 80 to 145. All good. I’m photographing geographically interesting places on Earth. A decent day, but here’s what surprises me. I ask Tamara Batenchuk (the medical experiment specialist), what was the pulse during the EVA? She says: “Not high, about 100 — you were smiling.” It’s interesting how we’re wired — when there’s tension in the voice and a high pulse, it creates a sense of the moment’s significance.

When complex, difficult work is done calmly, without playing up the difficulties, with a smile, it doesn’t impress. And the fact that behind that smile, that ease and calm in work stand years of hard, serious labor, as a result of which everything is polished, refined to the highest standard of personal responsibility — that isn’t obvious to everyone, it’s out of sight. Although in this I see the highest form of professionalism, which echoes Suvorov’s words: “Hard in training, easy in battle.” Because at the peak of tension, what’s valued is composure, self-control, and a smile is their worthy expression. In the evening we tested the X-ray spectrometer. It’s acting up. Still, I hope it’ll start working; without it we’ll lose a lot of valuable information in the astrophysics research program. In the evening we talked with Zhenya Kobzev. Things aren’t great. He says that at TsUP conversations have already appeared among the specialists and management confirming our pre-flight assumptions and coinciding with our strong desire to push for a flight extension to set a record. I told him that as the flight doctor, he should stay out of these conversations for now.

I’m photographing geographically interesting places on Earth. Today I shot the Cape Verde Islands, Cape Town, the Cape of Good Hope, and St. Lawrence Bay. The Cape Verde Islands stood in the Atlantic in a small ring-dance, as if defending themselves from the fierce assaults of the ocean. The islands are volcanic; on one I could clearly see the vent in the dome of an old volcano. Next to the larger islands, about 40 km across, there are small ones, like offspring, seeming to huddle up against the big ones. All around is the blue of the ocean and the dark brown islands, like the backs of enormous sea creatures. On one of them, in the northern part, there is light sand.

The western coast of Africa is even, bordered by a wide light-yellow strip of sand transitioning into the white line of surf. In the southwestern part of Africa, nearly at its tip, a crescent-shaped arc of land forms a well-sheltered bay — that’s Cape Town, and to the south you can see the Cape of Good Hope, an unremarkable protrusion of the coastline, but it’s famous because the traverse of the lighthouse on it marks the boundary between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

Presumably, sailors named it the Cape of Good Hope as they set out for the wealthy countries of Southeast Asia. Across the southern coast of Africa from west to east stretch folds of mountain ranges and deep faults. The coast of West Africa is reddish-brown in color; the feeling is as if the earth is scorched, and it really is: just think how much of the Sun’s heat it has absorbed.

We just passed over Kamchatka; a chain of volcanoes stretches from south to north in a line of peaks, and the folds of the mountains, trimmed with snow, resemble silver stars on New Year’s trees, all surrounded by the azure blue of water. Beautiful, damn it! Some of the domes are clear of snow, light brown in color. Tolya and I started talking about how vast our great homeland is. Moscow is just falling asleep while we’re already flying into the morning of our far-off native land.

About 20 minutes out of the 90 — that’s the time for one orbit around the planet — we fly over our homeland. Via our onboard teletype “Stroka” we received a warm telegram from the All-Union Komsomol Shock Construction Site of the Order of Lenin Krasnoyarsk Hydroelectric Station Construction Administration.

“Like all Soviet people, we warmly applaud the brave, valiant space workers who multiply the glory of Soviet science and technology in the exploration of space. Honor and glory to all who designed and built the marvelous spacecraft ‘Soyuz T-5’ and ensured a confident flight. We wish Berezovoy and Lebedev successful completion of this important mission for the Motherland. We are especially glad that among the star crew of cosmonauts is a graduate of MAI. The hydroelectric builders of the Yenisei and MAI are linked by years of partnership. The contribution of student construction brigades to the building of the most powerful hydroelectric stations in Siberia, our country, and the world — such as the Sayano-Shushenskaya — is invaluable. MAI students today are helping build the high dam at the Karlovsky site. In commemoration of the Soyuz T-5 flight, by joint decision of the workers’ collectives, the Komsomol organizations of the builders, as well as the fighters of the MAI student brigades working in the Sayans, Valentin Vitalyevich Lebedev has been enrolled as a carpenter-concreter in the Komsomol youth brigade of Dmitry Sergeyev, with his wages transferred to the Soviet Peace Fund. We wish you Siberian health, happiness, successful completion of the flight, and a safe return to Earth. We embrace you warmly. We wait for you as guests in the Sayans. Head of Construction Administration Sadovsky, Party Committee Secretary Smirnov, Komsomol Committee Secretary Syroeshko. MAI Student Brigade Commander — Doroshin. Commissar — Kypev.”

Without delay, I prepared a reply and during the last communication session that night transmitted a telegram:

“Dear friends, heartfelt thanks for your congratulations on our flight and for the great honor you have bestowed on me by enrolling me as a carpenter-concreter in Dmitry Sergeyev’s Komsomol brigade. I know well that MAI students and Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric builders are linked by a strong working friendship spanning many years. It is wonderful that our young MAI students, future builders of aircraft of various classes and purposes, receive their working temper from you, learn about modern construction, what its people live by, their concerns, and of course, the technology and organization.

But the main thing is that they learn the foundation of their future profession: that only in the union of nature’s forces with human talent and daring is energy born capable of overcoming even such a force as the Earth’s gravity. I assure you that through my work aboard the orbital complex Soyuz — Salyut-7 — Progress, I will strive to worthily represent the glorious hydroelectric builders. Until we meet on Earth. V. Lebedev.”