Oymyakon is the coldest city in the world. Life at the Pole of Cold
Hello, readers of our site "I and the World"! Today we are going with you on a journey to the cold, icy distances, the coldest place in Russia: Oymyakon is a village in the Republic of Sakha-Yakutia.
Here is a place on the planet where the thermometer falls below the record cold. In 1938, a temperature of -77.8 degrees was recorded in these places. So try not to complain about the cold this winter, we are not at the Pole of Cold!
Before the maximum low temperatures were set in Oymyakon, Verkhoyansk was considered the "Pole of Cold". And if one of the geologists did not begin to investigate the weather conditions in the village, then Verkhoyansk would have remained the coldest on the planet.
If you look at the map, the village is located to the left of the Indigirka River, in the eastern part of the republic.
The distance from Oymyakon to the city of Yakutsk, the capital of the region, is two days' drive. Can you imagine how long the ambulance will travel? Therefore, the village has a small airport.
Why Oymyakon is considered the coldest place on the planet. The village is hidden in the earth's hollow, and mountains rise around it, so that it is like in a ditch. Therefore, the cold here lingers for a long time, and the air heats up very slowly.
The local population is so accustomed to the cold that -50 degrees is considered a pleasant warming. If we compare the weather here and at the northernmost point of the Arctic Ocean, on Rudolf Island, then in Oymyakon it is 10 times colder. Moreover, permafrost reigns on the island.
By the way, the name of the village is translated as “non-freezing water”. Most likely, in honor of the hot spring, beating from the ground nearby. And the water heats the air around so much that in summer the temperature rises to +35 degrees.
There are few civilized amenities: the houses are heated by wood and coal, probably no pipes can withstand such cold weather. Even to the toilets you have to go through the yard.
It's funny, but some travel companies are trying to lure tourists here so that they try to live for several days in such "inhuman" conditions. It is clear that the queue does not line up for those who want it, and mainly journalists and scientists come here.
Civilization here is in the form of a Wi-Fi network, but there is no mobile connection at all.
Every day, in the cold here, the ink in the pens freezes, and the batteries die. Sometimes local residents who have cars leave them running, otherwise they simply won’t be able to start them later. And although this is the coldest settlement in Russia, there are enough people here. They are very friendly and always welcome guests.
There is only one small shop in the village - a dilapidated, wood-heated building. Buses do not run, so parents carry children to school in their cars or on sleds, it is difficult for the kids to move around themselves - they are so wrapped up in clothes.
A sunny day here depends on the season: in summer it lasts 21 hours, and in winter only 3 hours. Because in the warm season, the length of the day is increased by the beautiful white nights. And the difference in temperature differences is also large - minus 67-70 in winter, and 30-35 in summer.
The local flora and fauna are also amazing. Rather, there is nothing to be surprised here - practically nothing grows, and there are very few animals in the forests. There is no production here, so the locals breed and herd deer, fish and hunt in the forests. Only professionals in their field hunt, they know the exact places with game, otherwise you can freeze to death.
The inhabitants are engaged in breeding not only deer, but also cute undersized horses with very long hair up to 15 cm in length. Therefore, horses perfectly tolerate the most terrible cold, the main thing is to feed them well.
So, friends, you have found out which place on the planet is the coldest. Many people have now left here, where they constantly have to fight for survival. The most persistent remained, and those who are already used to it.
Get together and test your endurance and frost resistance, go boldly - spring is coming soon and warming is coming. Today and in the next couple of days the temperature will stay below -30, but in a couple of weeks it will rise to +18.
See also video:
Rosalia Petrovna Kondakova
Oymyakon is best known as one of the "Cold Poles" on the planet, according to a number of parameters, the Oymyakon Valley is the most severe place on Earth, where the permanent population lives.
The lowest temperature on Earth (-89.2 °C) was noted at the Vostok Antarctic station, however, the station is located at an altitude of 3488 m above sea level, and if we bring both temperature indicators to sea level, then Oymyakon will be recognized as the absolute champion . According to unofficial data, on the night of January 5-6, 1916, the temperature in the village dropped to -82 Celsius, which is only 7.2 higher than the absolute minimum on the planet, which was recorded 67.5 years later, on 21.07. 1983 at the Soviet polar station "Vostok". Then the absolute minimum at the same station was -88.3, that is, in Oymyakon it was only 6.3 higher. The average annual temperature in Oymyakon is -22.1 Celsius, these are the coldest averages in the Northern Hemisphere of the Earth. For comparison, the average annual temperatures at Vostok station are -55.6 C, since the climate there is less sharply continental (due to the polar night), and the altitude is 3488 meters above sea level, which is 2747 meters higher than in Oymyakon. Even in the two most predominantly warm months of the year, June and July, the temperature in the village can drop to -9.7 and -9.3 degrees, respectively. The absolute maximum in Oymyakon is 34.6 C. Among the 11 minimums on Earth from -65 degrees to the minimum, Oymyakon ranks third and fourth. Below is a list of these temperatures.
1) -89.6 station "Vostok", Antarctica
2) -88.3 station "Vostok", Antarctica
3) -82.8 Verkhoyansk, Russia
4) -82.0 Oymyakon, Russia
5) -77.8 Oymyakon, Russia
6) -71.2 Tomtor, Russia
7) -69.8 Verkhoyansk, Russia
8) -69.6 Oymyakon, Russia
9) -67.8 Verkhoyansk, Russia
10) -67.7 Oymyakon, Russia
11) -67.6 Oymyakon, Russia
12) -65.4 Verkhoyansk, Russia
13) -65.0 Delyankir, Yakutsk (both in Russia).
| Climate of Oymyakon (data from 1943) | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Indicator | Jan. | Feb. | March | Apr. | May | June | July | Aug. | Sen. | Oct. | Nov. | Dec. | Year |
| The absolute maximum | |||||||||||||
Rosalia Petrovna Kondakova
Oymyakon is best known as one of the "Cold Poles" on the planet, according to a number of parameters, the Oymyakon Valley is the most severe place on Earth, where the permanent population lives.
The lowest temperature on Earth (-89.2 °C) was noted at the Vostok Antarctic station, however, the station is located at an altitude of 3488 m above sea level, and if we bring both temperature indicators to sea level, then Oymyakon will be recognized as the absolute champion . According to unofficial data, on the night of January 5-6, 1916, the temperature in the village dropped to -82 Celsius, which is only 7.2 higher than the absolute minimum on the planet, which was recorded 67.5 years later, on 21.07. 1983 at the Soviet polar station "Vostok". Then the absolute minimum at the same station was -88.3, that is, in Oymyakon it was only 6.3 higher. The average annual temperature in Oymyakon is -22.1 Celsius, these are the coldest averages in the Northern Hemisphere of the Earth. For comparison, the average annual temperatures at Vostok station are -55.6 C, since the climate there is less sharply continental (due to the polar night), and the altitude is 3488 meters above sea level, which is 2747 meters higher than in Oymyakon. Even in the two most predominantly warm months of the year, June and July, the temperature in the village can drop to -9.7 and -9.3 degrees, respectively. The absolute maximum in Oymyakon is 34.6 C. Among the 11 minimums on Earth from -65 degrees to the minimum, Oymyakon ranks third and fourth. Below is a list of these temperatures.
1) -89.6 station "Vostok", Antarctica
2) -88.3 station "Vostok", Antarctica
3) -82.8 Verkhoyansk, Russia
4) -82.0 Oymyakon, Russia
5) -77.8 Oymyakon, Russia
6) -71.2 Tomtor, Russia
7) -69.8 Verkhoyansk, Russia
8) -69.6 Oymyakon, Russia
9) -67.8 Verkhoyansk, Russia
10) -67.7 Oymyakon, Russia
11) -67.6 Oymyakon, Russia
12) -65.4 Verkhoyansk, Russia
13) -65.0 Delyankir, Yakutsk (both in Russia).
| Climate of Oymyakon (data from 1943) | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Indicator | Jan. | Feb. | March | Apr. | May | June | July | Aug. | Sen. | Oct. | Nov. | Dec. | Year |
| The absolute maximum | |||||||||||||
What is the North Pole to us when we have our own. Think Siberian frosts are minus 20 ... minus 30. The inhabitants of Oymyakon will laugh at you for a long time. For them, it's "slightly chilly". “Cold” for local residents starts from minus 50, and even then, this is not a reason to stay at home.
Oymyakon is recognized as the coldest place in the northern hemisphere. It's called the Pole of Cold. Although Verkhoyansk is officially called the cold pole, which is 650 kilometers northwest. The difference in the average annual temperature in these settlements is usually no more than 3 degrees. But in this case, we will still consider Oymyakon to be the pole of cold (by the way, scientists are still arguing which of the two applicants to give the palm).
By and large, it is customary to call Oymyakon not only the village itself, but also its vast surroundings. The center of the Oymyakon region is the village of Tomtor.
Oymyakon on the map
- Geographic coordinates 63.459807, 142.781696
- Distance from the capital of Russia Moscow is about 5300 km
- The distance to the nearest airport of Yakutsk is about 680 km (although there is a local airfield in Oymyakon, but it falls short of the airport title, and it is located 40 km from the village itself, and 2 km from the village of Tomtor)
Oymyakon is a small village in the Oymyakonsky ulus (an analogue of the region familiar to us) of Yakutia on the left bank of the Indigirka River. It is characteristic that this settlement is located south of the Arctic Circle in the Oymyakon Valley and far from the ocean, so the climate here is sharply continental. All conditions have been created for the cold air to flow here from the surrounding mountains, the height of which reaches up to 2 km.
Oymyakon in numbers
- The minimum recorded air temperature is -71.2 degrees
- Height above sea level 745 meters
- Population for 2010 462 people
- Day length from 4h.36m. until 20h28
- The maximum recorded temperature is +34.6 degrees
It would seem that a person forgot here? Living conditions here can hardly be called favorable. But, nevertheless, people have settled here for a long time. And the reason is that in these places (no matter how paradoxical it may sound) a special kind of horses grazes. The Yakut horse is squat and rather shaggy, able to find food for itself, picking the frozen ground with its hoof in search of grass. In addition, gold veins were found in these places, and now more than 5 tons of gold are mined here a year. Antimony is also mined.
Living here is difficult. Winter occupies two thirds of the year. Summer is short and cold, but there are exceptions, and instead of 10-15 degrees, the air warms up to +35 (recorded in 2010, but this is more an exception than a rule).
Exceptionally virgin nature surrounds Oymyakon. In winter, the landscape is filled with various shades of white. All the trees are covered with snow from head to toe. The surrounding views are simply unrealistic beauty.
- Oymyakon means non-freezing water in Evenk language. It is here at minus 50 and 60 degrees that you can find non-freezing rivers. This is explained by the presence of warm springs, beating from the bowels of the Earth. Extreme lovers can even swim
- According to unofficial data, the air temperature in the winter of 1938 dropped to minus 77.8 degrees. And in 1916 to minus 82 degrees. But there is no reliable information about this.
- Schoolchildren do not attend classes if it is below -58 degrees outside
- Locals seem older than their years due to the climate
- At temperatures below 50 degrees, you can hear, as the locals say, "the whisper of the stars." This is an unusual sound, similar to a mixture of wind and spilling grain. That's how a person's breath freezes
- Fuel consumption when driving a car in winter approximately doubles. Unnecessarily, local residents do not leave if the temperature is below -55 degrees
- Car tires become very tanned in the cold and may even crack.
- Local motorists insulate the windows of their cars with additional glass (sometimes they are glued directly to the tape)
Hello! My name is Nikolay, I am 38 years old and I want to tell you my story. It just so happened that my mother gave birth to me at the Pole of Cold. Probably, dear readers, you are aware enough to know that the pole of cold does not coincide with either the north pole or the south pole, but is located in Yakutia, in the village of Oymyakon. In fact, residents of neighboring Verkhoyansk vehemently argue that it is colder here, but it has been documented that it is colder in Oymyakon, even if this is not the case, everyone still believes.
My parents, being naive students, came here at the end of the 60s from Novosibirsk, by distribution after the institute. I don’t know what motivated them, this topic was never raised in the family, but it just so happened that my sister and I were born here. After school, Svetlana went to study in Vladivostok, got married there and stayed by the warm Sea of Japan for the rest of her life (for us, Vladivostok is a very warm city). I learned to be an electrician in Yakutsk and returned to my native village. From Yakutsk to Oymyakon about a thousand kilometers. There is no bus service all year round. In summer, you can still get there by public transport, and in winter you have to take an UAZ "loaf" and drive it through the snowy desert. The road takes an average of thirty hours, so only a wealthy person can afford to leave or come to Oymyakon in winter. Not winter here only from the second half of May to the first half of September. All the rest of the time - cold dog.
It's funny to read the news or watch stories on television, where they tell how Moscow froze at twenty degrees below zero, our children stop going to school only when the thermometer drops below sixty degrees. Twenty degrees with a minus sign - a fabulous warmth, minus thirty - a slight coolness. In January, in Oymyakon, the average temperature is 55 degrees below zero, in February it is even colder, under sixty. People endure such weather gifts. Even in summer, there is periodically a negative temperature, there is no need to talk about any sunburn in such a climate, you just need to survive.
My parents worked at a weather station. In theory, it was already possible to retire after fifteen working years, but they worked for twenty-two years - and then left for the mainland, where they were seriously ill for several years. In Oymyakon, due to the high ambient temperature, there are no viruses at all, they simply die here. On the mainland, any cold, any flu, can be fatal to a northerner. Now, following the Parents to the south, to Novosibirsk, I left. So far I have been living here for only a year, but first things first. Let's start with what kind of village this Oymyakon is.
Oymyakon village
Who needs Oymyakon is unclear. The authorities have long ceased to pay attention to the problems of poor northerners. Before moving to Novosibirsk, I worked as an electrician at the Airport. Electrician - loudly said. At the pole of cold, it looks like an old building that looks like a barn, with broken glass, torn doors and furniture collected from neighbors who abandoned their homes. No one finances the airport, so all its personnel - the dispatcher, the runway inspector, the electrician - survive as best they can. We were paid salaries, but we were not given money for repairs and other needs at all. After I quit, the inspector began to combine his work with the work of an electrician. There was nothing tricky in my work - I just had to organize the illumination of the runway. In the cold, the bulbs exploded, even when under a hood. Of course, there are special lamps that are not afraid of frost, but no one gave us money for them. You can, of course, not fly at night, but in winter we have only four hours of light, of which two hours are twilight. Like it or not, you need to turn on the light on the strip. If nothing changes, then soon the dispatcher will also leave the airport, then the inspector will probably have to combine three positions.
In a dilapidated log building, which we call the airport, there is a waiting room. It looks like a room with two old sofas. It is very cold in it, because the airport is old and it is slowly blowing from the cracks.
Near the airport there is a pen for cows and a kindergarten. Now he is only half working, there are still children in Oymyakon. A little further away - a huge field that even a very drunk person cannot call even, this is our runway.
The airport was organized during the Great Patriotic War. There was an air base of the Pacific Fleet, which made raids on Japan. After the end of the Second World War, the airport began to be used for peaceful purposes, for civilians. Only two aircraft models flew here - An-2 and An-24. Flights are prohibited at temperatures of minus six degrees Celsius and below. In Soviet times, planes flew all year round, then, during perestroika, flights were stopped, which almost killed the village, but a few years later they resumed again. True, now there is communication with Yakutsk only in the summer. Previously, there was also a flight to the village of Ust-Nera, but now it was closed as unnecessary. In winter, you can get to the big city only by UAZ.
In our frosts, the car is not jammed. Truckers in Yakutia have motors running for months without shutting down. In two hours of downtime, everything will freeze so much - that then you have to wait for the summer to start. On the mainland, cars are warmed up in warm boxes, in car washes. We don't have anything like that in Oymyakon. And in general, in all of Yakutia, probably, only in Yakutsk you can find warm boxes. If you leave the car with the engine running for four hours, it will also freeze, the wheels will turn into stones. Of course, you can drive such a car, but very carefully and slowly. Imagine riding on wheels that resemble the shape of an egg - is it convenient? And we had to drive like this every winter. You roll on the sly and think: “Damn this north, I’ll go to Sochi, I’ll buy a house.” And then you don't go anywhere. And not because you love this Oymyakon and these frosts so much, it’s just that everything is spinning again, it starts spinning and it’s not up to it. You have to survive here.
It is not uncommon for tires to burst in winter. The iron frames of cars regularly crack, plastic bumpers crumble to dust from frost. The most cruel thing that can happen to a car enthusiast is if the stove breaks in his car. Of course, here everyone glues both doors and vents, but the cold still enters the car, and it itself cools down due to outside air. If the stove is covered - put on everything that you find and how you want, pull to the nearest village. True, they are not the same with us as in the Central part of Russia, and two hundred, and three hundred kilometers can be driven until you find someone, but you can go all five hundred.
People on the mainland are afraid that the dollar will rise, the ruble will fall, tariffs will be raised, and so on. etc. in Oymyakon, the main fear is problems with energy. In conditions of such a frost, you begin to treat the ordinary joys of life with particular reverence. The entire village is heated by a diesel power station. There is no need to talk about any boiler house in such a frost, there will be too big losses. Our diesel power plant, in my lifetime, failed several times in the most bitter cold. Moreover, in my memory, no one has ever done a major overhaul of the power plant. Fortunately, from Yakutsk they quickly responded to a breakdown and sent a team of workers. All the same, the male population, at this time, tried to prevent the water supply from freezing, which would have broken through later, after the power plant was repaired. Everyone who could, picked up a blowtorch and warmed the pipes.
Each house has its own heating element here, since transferring hot water at a sixty-degree frost is fraught - at best, it will simply cool down. But in order for even a cold one to reach a person, it is necessary to heat the pipes with electricity. To do this, special heating cables are placed on them, and a casing on top. If the power plant stops working, then the pipes stop heating, and the casing is able to keep heat only for a certain time - then it becomes not enough. You have to rip off the casing and heat the pipe with a blowtorch. If the pipe breaks, it is unrealistic to replace it before the summer. Can you imagine leaving a hospital, school or kindergarten without water?
Yes, there is a hospital, a school, and a store at the Pole of Cold. Work is not only for harsh men, but also for fragile women. Even children in Oymyakon are not the same as on the mainland. From childhood, she is ready for frost and harsh Yakut weather. When it's cold outside, no heating helps. Schoolchildren sit in the classroom in a coat (the coat is specially kept at school, because it is not reasonable to carry it back and forth with you) and warm the gel pens, which, in theory, do not freeze in the cold.
The attitude to clothing in Oymyakon is not at all the same as on the mainland. Beautiful, ugly, it doesn't matter. The main thing is to be warm. If you jump out into the street in a thin jacket for a couple of minutes, then the sleeve may break off, or the collar. A real Oymyakon wears high fur boots made of camus, the skin of the lower part of the reindeer leg. For one pair of high fur boots, ten kamus are needed, that is, fur from ten deer legs. The length of the fur coat must reach the boots. Otherwise, you can freeze your knees and lower leg. On the head is a fur hat made of polar fox, mink or fox, for those who live more modestly. You can't go out without a scarf. In severe frost, you can breathe on the street only through a scarf. Thus, at least some amount of warm air enters the lungs. At low temperatures, the oxygen content in the air is very low, so the average person breathes twice as fast. If you exhale in the cold in silence, you can hear rustling, it freezes the exhaled air. Oymyakon frosts are not afraid of colds, but frostbite is easier to get here - you can also protect yourself from it only with a warm scarf.
The nature of women does not change in plus twenty or minus sixty. Even in such weather in Oymyakon you can meet a woman in stockings and a short skirt, however, there will be a long, long fur coat on top, but the essence of the matter does not change. It is enough to announce dances - and beauties from all the nearest villages will come together to show themselves and look at others. There are still women in the Yakut villages.
Children of the Pole of Cold
As it turns out, I don't have any children of my own. I had a wife, but God did not send children. Somewhere I read that children themselves choose their parents, apparently none of them wanted to live at the Pole of Cold. Reasonable guys, there is nothing to say. No matter how hard it is for adults in Oymyakon, it is doubly hard for children. When I was still quite a baby, before being taken out into the street, they dressed me for half an hour, and all this was very reminiscent of a mysterious ritual. First, warm underwear is put on, then woolen pants, and on top - a wadded jumpsuit. On the body - a flannelette shirt, on top - a warm sweater. And then, to complete the image of cabbage - a zigey coat. On the feet - ordinary socks, woolen socks and felt boots. There is a knitted hat on the head, and a zigey hat on top. On the palm - hare mittens. It was absolutely impossible to walk in such a knightly costume. Therefore, small children are not driven down the street here, but carried in sleds. You can’t just put a child in a sled - you need to heat the bedding on the stove, lay it down first, and put the child on top. Outside, the baby has only eyes and eyebrows, the rest of the body is not cold.
You are from the north, but why do you have all the walruses there or what?
Are you a singer? Come on, sleep! Are you from the north? Can you go without a hat in winter? When I first moved to Novosibirsk and told that I grew up on Oymyakon, everyone was very surprised. It was believed that we could walk there barefoot in the snow in a fifty-degree frost. On the contrary, the further north a person lives, the more carefully he treats heat and, accordingly, dresses warmer.
Until recently, nobody walrus in Yakutia. Now there are also few amateurs, but even accidents do not scare them away. For example, there is a bad tradition in Russia - to dive into the hole for baptism. It is surprising that the Orthodox Church repeats that this rite is not a church rite, and in general it is harmful, and every year the people dive more and more into the hole. In the middle of the 2000s, this fashion for false Orthodoxy also reached Yakutia. It cost dozens of people their health, and someone, probably, their lives. Imagine for yourself, outside the window minus fifty-five degrees, the water temperature is three degrees above zero. You undress - you go dry through the snow to the water - no problems, you dip - it's generally great, warm, but as soon as you get out, your feet will instantly freeze to the ice. I myself witnessed how the first desperate daredevils dived into the hole. Then we tore them off the ice by force. The Russian man is ready for a bad deed. No one finished experiments with winter swimming at the Pole of Cold - they began to dive, but having a bucket of hot water at hand. A person gets out of the water and a hot path is poured in front of him so that he can run to the car, wipe himself off and put on dry clothes. Another way is to dive in shoes, shoes do not stick to ice. It is strictly forbidden to dive into the hole while intoxicated.
In general, if you have drunk, it is better not to go out. Alcohol doesn't protect you from the cold. He is more of an enemy than a friend. Falling asleep is not difficult. In the best case, frozen limbs are amputated. Although can such a case be called the best? There are a lot of troubles from alcohol in the north. Previously, there was dry law in Oymyakon. Nobody introduced it, it just was, and people observed it. The instinct of self-preservation told them that it is better not to keep even half a liter in the house away from sin. If you want to drink - drink a little at home. Now you can read, now about the bottom frozen to death, then about something else. Vodka generally freezes in the cold, like mercury thermometers, which do not work below forty-five degrees below zero. In the village, residents use alcohol thermometers, but rather not for good, but for fun. It’s clear, after all, that it’s cold outside the window, but what difference does it make - fifty degrees or fifty-five?
In Oymyakon, the most ordinary objects and things take on very unusual forms. For example, the police here never carry batons - in the cold they harden and burst on impact, like glass. Fish taken out of the water in the cold turns glassy in five minutes. Linens also need to be dried very carefully. In a couple of minutes in the cold, it becomes a stake, and after two hours, things already need to be brought back. If you do this carelessly, then the pillowcase or duvet cover can break in half.
Winter on the street, of all domestic animals, only dogs, horses and, of course, reindeer can endure. Cows spend most of the year in warm bread. They can be let out on the street only when the thermometer rises above thirty degrees of frost, but even at such a temperature it is necessary to put on a special bra on the udder, otherwise the animal will freeze it. Refrigerators are not used here for most of the year, storing meat, fish and lingonberries on the veranda. It is impossible to chop meat with an ax - otherwise it will turn into a small chip, you have to saw it. Local residents suffer from beriberi indiscriminately. They try to fight it with onions, but it gives only a small fraction of vitamins.
People at the Pole of Cold look much older than their years, and only a few live more than fifty-five years. Separately, it is worth mentioning the funeral in our climate. There is even a saying here - God forbid you die in winter. Graves are being dug for a whole week. The earth is first heated with a stove, then the soil is hammered with crowbars by twenty centimeters, then it is heated again and again hammered, and so on until the depth reaches two meters. The work is terrible. There are no full-time diggers in Oymyakon, digging the grave falls entirely on the shoulders of relatives and friends.
Oymyakon now
There is still work to be done at the Pole of Cold. It will always be here as long as there are people, but every year there are fewer and fewer residents. Someone dies, someone leaves for the mainland. Previously, near Oymyakon, there was a large livestock farm and a farm where silver fox was bred. Her fur was the best. Probably not in vain they say that the stronger the frost, the better the fur. Now both the complex and the farm are closed. A few people work at the airport, some work at the substation, and the meteorological station is still functioning. People from the mainland do not come here to work, except for very desperate brave men, but such people can be counted on the fingers of one hand over the past ten years. Salaries by northern standards are not the highest, but when I say in Novosibirsk that I received 72 thousand rubles in Oymyakon, everyone rolls their eyes dreamily. They just don't know that chocolate costs seven hundred rubles a bar there, and all other goods are also very expensive.
Away from the cold
After my divorce from my wife and the death of my parents, I got really depressed. Although my parents lived far away, but once a year I steadily got out to them, looked at the huge Novosibirsk and envied all the people living there. None of you understand how difficult it is to drag out your existence in conditions of inhuman cold. By the age of thirty-five, my body probably had the biological age of a fifty-year-old man. There are practically no teeth left. At thirty-seven, it was supposed to be fifteen years since I worked in Oymyakon, which means I was entitled to a pension. I haven't worked a day since I retired. I waited for the first UAZ to go to Yakutsk, collected things dear to my memory and drove away. I said goodbye to several people, walked around my native village for the last time and that was it.
Then there was paperwork with an extract from Oymyakon, a flight to Novosibirsk, a passport office, justice, etc. etc. My parents left a two-room apartment in the city on Serebryannikovskaya Street, so I live almost in the center. I don’t know any problems, every new day is really new for me. I had a computer for a long time, but only in Novosibirsk I discovered the Internet. At first, I felt awkward in the supermarket and in the subway, I was embarrassed by the crowds of people on the streets. Living in the north, you spend a huge amount of time with yourself or with your loved ones. Thus, even the most sociable person runs the risk of becoming an introvert. It's still hard for me to strike up a conversation with a stranger. Although I served in the army and lived in Yakutsk while I was studying at a technical school, I was still not used to huge masses of people. And yet, here, on the mainland, people are much more sociable than we have there, in the North. Recently, I found in my classmates all my friends who left Oymyakon earlier - no one yearns and does not want to go back.
The only thing that sometimes dreams is our warm stove. Where I, as a very young kid, slept in the long winter nights. I slept on the stove, and my mother got up very early and cooked food for us in this stove. This dream is so real that immediately after it I wake up and for a long time I cannot understand where I am, and then I go to the window and look at the big beautiful houses, sometimes I see people walking down the street and not wrapping themselves in a scarf and I understand that I am in a completely different, warm world. I heard more than once that Novosibirsk is considered a cold city. It depends what you compare it to.
There is a great infrastructure here. You can leave or fly anywhere. Thousands of northerners who find themselves in harsh nature not of their own free will, but because they were born there, dream of living in Novosibirsk or a similar big and warm city, where water runs from the tap all the time, and does not freeze for months, where you can not be afraid, that the car will stall - and you will freeze to death. By the way, I recently bought a car - Renault Logan. I started it without autostart in winter, in thirty-degree frost, when neighbor's cars stood at a stake. My new friend Shurik jokes that the engine understands that I am a northerner and cannot fool around like that in front of me, which is why it starts up like a clock.
Life begins at forty...
I was brought up in such a way that I always thought that after forty, sunset was already beginning. I’m looking at Siberians now, at the age of forty they walk with young girls, they look smart and generally don’t consider themselves old people. While this is new to me. When I asked a colleague at a new job: “How old do you think I am?”. She immediately replied, "Fifty?" On the one hand it was funny, but on the other awkward. I'm only thirty-eight, which means you can start a new life and even have children. So far, however, on this basis, not everything is smooth.
I work as an electrician at a supply base. Not the most romantic profession, give women bosses or narrow specialists with a large salary, but I have no position, no salary, and even with health problems. As soon as some kind of epidemic begins in the city, I immediately begin to get sick. There is no immunity to sores from the mainland, but during the one winter that I lived here, I never got frostbite. Siberian weak frost leaves no traces on my skin. What will happen to me, an ordinary Oymyakon peasant, is unknown, but I am sure that nothing bad will happen. The past is forgotten, the future is closed, the present is granted.
Instead of an afterword
I hope that someday the authorities will turn their attention away from their PR, their money and their dirt and pay attention to the problems of ordinary people. There are many of us. Probably, we are not seven spans in the forehead that we cannot find a place for ourselves under the sun, but we are also people and also deserve a little, but happiness. If somewhere in a remote village of Yakutia a child starts to get sick in winter and the paramedic throws up his hands, then nothing can help the baby. No roads, no communication, no chance. Diamonds are mined in our region, we bring a lot of money to the treasury, where does it all go? Why do we need such small villages where it is impossible to live? So let Vladimir Putin save the Siberian Cranes or dive for amphoras, but come to Yakutia and see how people live there. I do not want to sound like a whiner, but with such an attitude of power towards the Russian north, we will soon completely lose control over this territory. There will be one big white desert. Better give Yakutia to the Japanese, enough to indulge your imperialist ambitions. It is not possible to manage - it is not necessary, why torture people? Northerners never complain about their lives, only when I was here in Novosibirsk, I realized how bad it is to live in Oymyakon.
P.S. In my memory, more foreigners (Japanese, Canadians, Americans, Norwegians) came to us in Oymyakon than Russians. Russian moneybags, who flew in on separate planes, looked at the coldest place on Earth just for fun, and citizens of other states were interested in how we live in such harsh conditions. They say that they even tried to help, but due to bureaucratic delays, nothing came of it. I think that says a lot...