Children living in the world's coldest city are still required to go to school - despite temperatures dropping to a bone-jarring -62.7C.
While it is around 280 miles south of the Arctic Circle, its weather would make anyone assume that it is at the heart of the icy polar region. The city of Yakutsk in east Siberia, which is widely considered the world’s coldest city, often records deeply freezing conditions. That is because temperatures in Yakutsk regularly hit -50C in the winter.
However, the cold weather isn't anything new to the people in the region, which has a decades long history of radical weather fronts, with the lowest-ever temperature recorded at -64.4C. The city has a population of 355,443, roughly the same size as Leicester, and residents are forced to wrap up warm in thick clothes all year round as temperatures stay far below freezing.
A video shared by AFP on Twitter from January 19 last year showed residents in Yakutsk plunging themselves into the ice cold waters of the Lena River, to mark the Orthodox Epiphany. The day was observed in Russia on the 19th in remembrance of the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist.
The occasion was one of the oldest holidays on the Christian calendar and was cause for a large celebration in Russia - which was a predominantly Orthodox country. Several people were captured in the video as they walked down a small ladder into a man-made plunge pool, rimmed by ice, in large canvas tent.
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Yakutsk, Siberia, generally considered to be the world's coldest city (AFP News Agency)A shot of a thermostat measuring the temperature of the water appeared to read -49C. Vasilii Kotenko, who was interviewed by the news agency, had travelled to Yakutsk from Crimea for the experience. Mr Kotenko said after you took the dip it was "like you were born again. What's interesting is that for the rest of the year you don't catch any flu, nothing," he claimed. Irina Korsakova, a pensioner, said she was “doing the bathing for the 11th time”. “I did not do it for the last two years because of the pandemic and I was sick myself. The feelings are always wonderful, it’s always a feeling of purity, wonderful sensations, of warmth,” she added.
Residents in Yakutsk were last year left without heating in the sub-zero temperatures as Vladimir Putin diverted money to his war efforts. Yakutsk is the world's largest city built on permafrost and has been nicknamed Russia’s Kingdom of Cold. However, life continues as normal for the city's residents - with children braving the elements on a daily basis to attend school.
It was one of the worst cases of power cuts - more frequent than usual - despite excess gas availability because of a block on Kremlin exports to the West. Social media was exploding with demands for help as local officials celebrated the New Year. One local said: “Pipes are bursting, heating tanks are breaking down, everything is hard frozen. The local authorities were not prepared for this situation at all.”
A Russian is pictured brave the ice cold waters of the Lena river in Yakutsk (AFP News Agency)Despite being a part of Siberia rich in diamond, gold, uranium and other mineral resources, it was recently reported that Putin's war had left locals without heating in the bone-chilling tundra. Though it's the coldest city in the world, summers shoot up to an average of 24C - making it also the location with the highest seasonal temperature difference.
While the temperatures and situation is depressing, Yakutsk residents are said to make the best of their difficult surroundings. Reports could lead you to believe Yakutsk is a frozen wasteland where people shiver in dilapidated huts, huddling together for warmth, but in reality it has all the basic infrastructure of any regular city, including supermarkets, hotels, coffee shops and a public transport system.
After the freezing day, many will head out to local bars or nightclubs to load up on beer, reports thetravel.com. For drinking water, residents head to the river and chop off a block of ice, bring it home and melt it. As you walk through the town, locals can be seen hanging fruits and meats from their windows because it's more effective than a high-tech freezer.
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