On 11 – 18 July, the XXIII Baikal Summer School on elementary particle physics and astrophysics was held. This year, the School was dedicated to the 110th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding Italian and Soviet physicist Bruno Pontecorvo. The School organizers are the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research and Irkutsk State University (ISU).

The traditional venue is the Baikal Biological Station of the Research Institute of Biology of ISU in the village of Bolshie Koty. Traditional topics of lectures and classes are the Standard Model, neutrino physics and astrophysics. This year, about a hundred people took part in the work of the School. The participants came to Baikal from various parts of our country: from Dubna, Irkutsk, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tomsk, Vladivostok, Kazan, Novosibirsk, Voronezh, Yekaterinburg, Nalchik.

“The last School pleased with a high level of training of students: students, undergraduates, graduate students. The active involvement of each of them in the process, an avid interest in new knowledge were noted by all the lecturers and guests of the School without exception. Today, already summing up, we can say that the XXIII Baikal School was held at a very high level!” a member of the Organizing Committee of the School, Director of NIIPF ISU Andrey Tanaev noted.

Professor Alexander Vall (ISU) and Dmitry Naumov (DLNP) were at the origins of the development of the School. With great love and passion, Dmitry Vadimovich continues to be Head of the School, having worked with his whole soul and ardent enthusiasm for its organization for more than two decades. We asked him to share his impressions of the last School and this is what he told us:

“We realized that we were in for something unique when the number of applications exceeded all our expectations and we had to select only the most qualified participants. Our colleagues from Irkutsk showed amazing ingenuity and perseverance to include in the list of participants even students after the second year that were originally in the “waiting list”. Young participants from all over the country showed fantastic motivation, intelligence, knowledge and curiosity. They began each question with gratitude to the lecturer that was very touching. Questions and discussions continued even after the lectures and they returned to them again and again. All discussions were constructive, friendly and interesting.

The participants made a deep impression on everyone but in my opinion, Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Deputy Director for Research at INR RAS Grigory Rubtsov expressed it best of all: “It seems that they can be given any task and they will immediately solve it.” Perhaps one of the lecturers took advantage of this idea.

I really liked all the lectures given at the School. There was not a single one after which I would have thought: “Oh, I shouldn’t have invited him.” It has happened before, but not this time. For this, I am very grateful to all the lecturers that prepared high-quality lectures and held discussion groups almost every day. This is a huge work that given the busyness of our wonderful lecturers, causes special admiration and respect. I myself slept almost every night no more than 2-3 hours, but I do not regret it at all.

In general, the spirit of creativity, freedom, kindness and fun reigned at the School. It was great that we had such legends as Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Scientific Leader of JINR Viktor Matveev and Professor, Dean of the Faculty of Physics, ISU Nikolay Budnev with us! They inspired us.

Finally, the School would not have been so successful if it were not for the perfectly coordinated work of the Organizing Committee from ISU and JINR that worked like an atomic clock, effectively, quickly and effortlessly eliminating any difficulties. Many were sad on the day of departure. That says a lot.

In conclusion, I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who took part in this amazing event. Your participation and contribution make our scientific community stronger. We are looking forward to the next School!”