Living in a Fridge: Oymyakon

When you are thinking about Russia, the images of winter land come to your mind. Piles of snow, frost paintings on windows, little kids with red cheeks building snow fortresses outside, Ded Maroz coming with his blue coat and a huge sack of gifts, Christmas trees with silver decorations and little snowflakes are quietly falling all the time. This sounds like a magical winter tale, but the reality is different. However, Russians are proud of their little winter wonderland called Oymyakon which is not so magical as it is called the coldest inhabited place on Earth.

Temperature

Oymyakon is a small village in the east Yakutia and it’s the coldest place on Earth where people permanently live and work for many years. This village was named after the Oymyakon River which in a local dialect has two meanings: ‘unfrozen spot of water where fish spend the wintertime’ or ‘frozen lake’. This still is a serious object of discussions for the local people.

Oymyakon is situated in a place of subarctic climate zone, as a result, the ground is permanently frozen here. It means activities such as go for a picnic or sunbathing sound like the major luxury for the locals. The annual average temperature here is about -16 °C. However, it’s not always snowing here. People experience very short summers in this place, but this time of the year is very rainy, as a result, the average amount of rainfall is 234 mm. The warmest month is July when the temperature can be up to +13 °C. Wintertime is long and difficult as January is the coldest month when the temperature can be lower than -40 °C.

This little village is known for the record: the lowest temperature of the full inhabitant area was recorded here in January of 1924 when it dropped up to −71.2 °C. Only Antarctica has recorded a lower official temperature of −89.2 °C in 1983. However, there are no permanent human being residents.

Daily life

Sometimes the temperature reaches the minus in the beginning of September and comes back to zero or plus degrees only in May. There have been a few years when the temperature of July was almost −10 °C and other years when the daily temperature of the whole month of January has been below −60.0 °C. So, it’s nothing but a miracle that people live there, have jobs, daily activities and don’t see anything weird about their lifestyles.

All local people know that it’s better not to go outside without covering your face when the temperature is below -30°C, don’t try to inhale the air directly without face mask as the frost can hurt the nasal cavity and trachea. Due to the difficulty of digging plumbing, most bathrooms are pit latrines out on the street. Surprisingly but protect your body, bathroom or house from the cold isn’t the biggest problem for locals. The most difficult tasks are the burial of their dead relatives. As the ground is permanently frozen into ice, it takes a lot of time, fire, gas-based equipment and hard-working to dig a decent grave.

About the Author

About the Author: More from this author.