show Abstracthide AbstractLake Baikal represents the world's deepest (1637 m) and largest volume of fresh liquid water (23,000 km3), accounting for nearly 20% of the earth's unfrozen freshwater. This study describes the microbial communities of the deep water column using high throughput sequencing. Water samples from two deep horizons (1250 and 1350 m) were taken on 29 March 2018 at the station of the ice camp, located in 7 km from the Listvyanka settlement, with the coordinates 51° 47.244' and 104° 56.346'. Ice thickness in the studied period was 70 cm and depth of the water column at the sampling site was 1405 m. 30 L of water were filtered through the net (size 27-µm) and then filtered through nitrocellulose filters with a pore size of 0.22 µm. DNA was extracted from the 0.22 micron filter (small, planktonic fraction) filter to obtain genomic DNA of the microbial community.