On the sixth day God created beasts of the earth, cattle, creeping things and humans. But before it, in the beginning He made the light, the heavens and the earth, the firmament in the midst of the waters and the dry land, the seas, the stars, the Sun and the Moon.

Although we work tireless and hard, we are still infinitely far from the above-mentioned effectiveness.

Till now I described things I could see by myself, my own experience. On the ice we install the equipment. To have the opportunity to do this, all the devices had first to be invented, designed; their prototypes had to be produced, tested, put into production, delivered; a lot of details had to be taken into account.

Everything that should be installed is put together on the shore. I am going to tell you about these people working ashore and the tasks they are facing a bit later, though I do not know when I can leave the ice: we have really a lot to do.

And that is how matters stand.

Some faults during operation were found within the third cluster assembled last year. Three strings were dismantled – the second, fourth and eighth right to the defective modules. After they are replaced with new ones, these strings will be assembled again.

The fourth cluster:

• The bottom and middle sections of the central string have been installed (i.e. two thirds of the string are ready).
• The bottom section of the fourth string has already been assembled. Tomorrow, the string will be put “onto the stump” to set free the winch for running the bottom cable.
• Seven optical modules of the bottom section of the first string have been set.

There are eight strings in the cluster altogether.

The installation of the fifth cluster has not still been started.

The most complicated and responsible stage – the running of the bottom cable – is going to begin. This cable is needed to supply power from the shore to the entire facility and to transmit data from the shore station to the neutrino telescope and backwards.

The running of the 4-km-long bottom cable is a tough technical issue. It was solely Andrey Ivanovich Panfilov who was aware of the details to the full extent. Unfortunately, he passed away at the very beginning of the expedition. The large-scale dimension of his personality was already evident during his lifetime. But now it becomes more obvious that there was a man of genius among us. He was extremely insightful and could clearly see even very elusive things.

Now, Igor Belolaptikov and his colleagues are trying to find out how to fulfill this difficult task without Andrey Ivanovich. An error might cost a lot. Without this bottom cable all the fixed devices are merest trifles. Just to please omuls and seals.

Nevertheless, the running was launched. Small intermediate holes have already been cut out for “lacing-up”. The point of this procedure is to connect different mainas through horizontal cables. How to do this under the ice? Here again the stroke of genius of Andrey Panfilov. He invented and designed an under-ice tractor, which, having been put into one maina, moves towards another one, pulling a cord.

Then the cable is to be pulled by this cord. The running is usually performed at night. During the hours of darkness, the illuminated tractor can be seen under the one-meter-thick ice.

The tractor and the cutting tool are ready.

The Baikal Neutrino Telescope is a unique experiment, full of brilliant ideas, useful lifehacks and ingenious solutions.