We have all heard, in one way or another, about Siberia. That it is a distant land, a frozen land, of forced labor, almost a destination of punishment. It all stems from the fact that both the tsars and the communist government of the old Soviet Union used to send criminals and enemies here. The reason? It is a frozen land.
Here in Eastern Siberia, for example, there is a city: Yakutsk, the coldest city in the world. Let's get to know it.
Yakutsk
Siberia It is a very large region It is located in the Asian part of what is now the Russian Federation.. It occupies 76% of the Russian territory and goes from the Ural mountains to the Pacific. With 13,2 million square kilometers and a very low population density, it borders Mongolia, North Korea, China and Kazakhstan. The Yenisei River divides Siberia in two, the western and the eastern part.
It is then in Eastern Siberia that the city of Yakutsk. It is 450 kilometers from the Arctic Circle. and with her around 355.500 thousand inhabitants it is behind Vladivostok and Khabarovsk.
The city owns the port of the Lena river valley and a major airport. People came here around the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries., were groups of Turkic peoples, from northern and central Eurasia, pushed by the military uprising of the Mongols. Upon arrival they mixed with the natives and thus, in 1632 the Russian city was born in the form of a Cossack fort. A few years later it became a voivodstvo, a territory under the military command of a governor.
Thus, the city and its community became the spearhead of the expansion of the Russian empire to the south and east, and it really came into its own, literally, when gold and other minerals were discovered at the end of the XNUMXth century. It was these important mines that gave impetus to the industrialization of the Soviet Union, already in the XNUMXth century and under the government of Stalin.
After World War II, forced labor camps grew, for prisoners and dissidents, and over time Yakutsk became the most populous city in the region and as today, center of the Sakha Republic.
The river on whose shoreline the city rests is one of the longest in the world. At the same time It is the largest city found in the permafrost zone. What is permafrost? is the layer of soil that is permanently frozen, though that doesn't necessarily mean there's always ice or snow. It happens in all very cold or periglacial regions, such as the tundra. Obviously, there are permafrots not only in Russia but in places like Alaska, Canada or Tibet, for example.
Then, Yakutsk's climate is extreme subarctic, so yes, it is one of the coldest cities in the world. What temperatures is it? It has an annual average of -12ºC and the average for January is around -41ºC. July is at 18ºC, although there have been years where it has reached 33ºC. So, has one of the largest temperature swings in the world. It doesn't snow much, which helps make it a livable city, since it doesn't rain much and therefore, it doesn't snow much either.
The winters are eternal and cold. The lowest temperature here has been -64ºC. Summers are short but warm and can easily reach 33ºC, although the highest recorded has reached 38.4ºC. And being so, how is life here?
Calm and cold. Most are they miners or traders already adapted to the fact that the cold season lasts here at least three months - from mid-November to the end of February. And if, January is the super cold month. Clothing is essential, something in which yes or yes you have to invest: warm shoes, thermal pants, gloves and a hat on your head, an obligation to avoid losing body heat. The houses are built on stilts driven into the permafrost, since with the summer the snow melts a little and everything gets muddy and can move.
The strangest thing, for those who are not acid in the zone, is to feel that the air is never completely heated as it passes through the nose. So, it's always breathing cold air and also freezing your nose. It seems that the local people have a smaller nose, but if you are not from around here and your nose is big, well, you will suffer a bit. Also is true that in winter no one is outside your house if you don't need it.
People live indoors, unless they are construction workers and then they are outside with temperatures of -50ºC without problems. Below this number they do not work since the metal can break. Life does not stop, except with the most extreme cold. Nobody turns off the car when they go shopping, It may even be that they leave it like this all day.
If it occurred to us to go visiting Yakutsk, what could we do? The city has the Sakha Theater, a building of Opera and Ballet and various museums. The most important is the Mammoth Museum, which opened its doors in 1991 and is dedicated to the study of the mammoth.
Before, any fossil found in Siberia was sent to other institutions in the country, Moscow, St. Peterbsurgo or Novosibirsk. The museum is important and that is why it has the name "worldwide". 75% of what is known about mammoths are preserved here, with more than 1450 objects and fossil remains. Obviously, much is preserved at low temperatures for future study.
there is also the House Museum History of political exile in Yakutia, the Museum of Folklore and Music, the Museum of Archeology and the National Museum of Art of Sakha. The most current cultural center is from September 2020, the Gagarin Center for Contemporary Art and Culture.
So, if you have time, money and curiosity, you can go and see Yakutsk, the coldest city in the world. It is only 5 thousand kilometers east of Moscow and in winter it is surrounded by an icy mist that seems magical.