The “Lake Baikal” Foundation will continue to support the long-term monitoring project of Lake Baikal “Point №1” according to Anastasia Tsvetkova, Executive Director of the foundation. The year 2026 will mark the tenth year of support for the project of ISU scientists.

The “Point №1” project is an example of a unique scientific programme on a global scale. Since 1945, a team of scientists from ISU Research Institute of Lake Baikal Biology has been taking samples from Lake Baikal weekly without fail at “Pelagic Station № 1” (“Point № 1”) located in Southern Baikal, opposite the village of Bolshye Koty, identifying hundreds of species of zoo- and phytoplankton under the microscope and forming a valuable database of indicators of Lake Baikal ecosystem state.

The “Lake Baikal” foundation not only helps by financing the project, but also by spreading information about the research done by ISU scientists, for example, through a series of publications in top federal editions. The foundation also helps bring in resources of other partners. Thanks to this, it became possible to establish cooperation with the company Yandex. Other business structures that are ready to support the project’s implementation in one way or another have also begun to show interest in it.

Maxim Timofeev, Doctor of Biological Sciences, director of ISU Research Institute of Lake Baikal Biology:

Without the longstanding and voluntary support from the foundation, our unique project would have ceased to exist. The help to the project of Irkutsk scientists is a rare and valuable case in Russia.