On March 14, 2015 a great Russian writer, one of the main defenders of Lake Baikal Valentin Rasputin passed away.

Not with any of our contemporaries, so clearly directly we associate the image of Baikal. Perhaps no one better than Valentin Rasputin felt Baikal as a living organism, could not so simple, and at the same time vividly and expressively convey the feelings which every person experience in the Great Lake.

«Baikal ... On the planet he is one - the unique, majestic Sphinx, to the solution of which we have just moved in. More than two dozen million years over its expanses the sun rises and goes down, its clean water freeze and thaw, and Heaven send him their eternal blessing. He has already been when humanity was in its infancy and it will be when the end of the human era of the century will come ...».

Valentin Rasputin was a member of the Public Board of the Fund for Protection of Lake Baikal, took an active part in the preparation and holding of an international research expedition «Mirs» on Baikal», he immersed himself in GOA «Mir» at the bottom of the great lake.

The bright memory of Valentin Rasputin will remain forever in all who cherish one of the main symbols of our homeland - Baikal.

Fund for Protection of Lake Baikal