The final post about the January trip of my friend Vitalik. This is how it happens, at first he didn’t want to write, and then he signed up for several posts 🙂 I read and understand that such people need to blog, it’s painfully well written. But this is not surprising, linguists they are all like that.
During two days of my stay at the Pole of Cold, I learned something remarkable from the life of ordinary people of Oymyakon. As a result, the idea came up to put it in a small collection of 33 facts. Here's what happened in the end.
1. Oymyakon in Yakutia is a whole region, which includes several settlements, including the village of the same name. The center of the district is the village of Tomtor, where there is an airport and a meteorological station, at which a minimum temperature of -71.2 ° C was recorded. Here you can on the map look.
2. In Oymyakon itself (village), which is located 40 km north of Tomtor, there has never been a meteorological station, but for the sake of decency, a commemorative stele was installed there as well.
3. Externally, the villages of the Oymyakonskaya valley differ little from those we are accustomed to somewhere in the Volga region. It turns out that the technology of a simple Russian hut can easily withstand extreme frosts..
4. Cars do drive double glazing. Moreover, if a double package is immediately put on the windshield, then with the side ones it is impossible, therefore the second glass is glued onto ordinary scotch tape. Otherwise, the person sitting next to you will have a risk of frostbite on half of his face..
5. Cars are muffled at night, but there are special heated garages for them, where the temperature does not drop much below zero, so it's not a problem to start..
6. At temperatures below minus 56 (this is considered cold here), the equipment begins to behave strangely, and it is not recommended to travel far without unnecessary need.
7. If, nevertheless, it was necessary to go in such frost, then the consumption of gasoline doubles. In addition, if you stop on the way, the tires begin to deform under the weight of the car, and at first you have to go slowly and as if over bumps. You also have to carry with you a full set of spare parts, sufficient to fix a motor that has stalled on the road..
8. Children of elementary grades stop going to school at temperatures below -52, senior children - at minus 58. This is due to the same risk of equipment failure. many children get to school by bus.
9. In some houses, for example, in the Kuidusun village, where I stayed, there is a central water supply. However, only hot water flows from the tap (cold water would simply freeze in the pipes), and it should be fun to take a shower for those who have turned off the hot water at home: you need to carry cold water in buckets and dilute with hot water from the tap - the opposite is true..
10. By the way, many have a toilet in the yard. It has light, but no heating, and this is considered the norm. I probably won't share my feelings from visiting such a place =) However, they try to build new houses in the already familiar, not extreme format.
11. The cost of firewood for heating 120 m2 of a house + sauna + garage for the season (which lasts 8 months here) is about 50 tr. Taking into account the fact that this also provides hot water, it comes out even cheaper than in Moscow.
12. «Oymyakon» translated from Even means «non-freezing water». Indeed, where else could she not freeze. It's all about the warm springs that gush out from under the ground and form streams on the surface. They freeze completely only by March. The nature around them is exceptionally beautiful.
13. People live by hunting (for themselves) and animal husbandry (to sell and receive cash). Horses are bred for meat, there is also a large reindeer farm. In the photo is a cowshed.
14. The Yakut horse is a unique animal. She does not need a stable, she grazes in the open air in any weather, she also gets food for herself, picking the frozen ground with her hoof. She should be fed only so that she does not go far from the owners..
15. Farmers say that this horse «programmed» to search for special nutritious herbs, due to which its meat contains such a complex of vitamins that allows a person to eat well without eating vegetables and fruits.
16. Horse meat is considered coarse meat among the locals. Foal is held in high esteem, and in the Yakut restaurant you will be served it, not horse meat.
17. A foal is slaughtered at the age of 6-7 months by blindfold and an aimed blow with a hammer.
18. I can't check the vitamins, but a bottle of kumis made from this horse's milk makes you forget about hunger for a long time. It tastes exceptionally tart and resembles a dense strong ale..
19. The height of the hunting season falls on the most severe frost. hunting is prohibited in spring - this season animals give birth, and in summer bears compete (which, however, does not really stop the locals, they only complain that it is forbidden to shoot bears, and if necessary, it will then have to be proved).
20. Despite the attachment to nature, the locals are quite adept at information technology (however, only MTS has mobile Internet). For example, the driver Max, who was taking me from Ust-Nera to Tomtor, quit his job with his wife, they are now engaged in network marketing - they manage the sales of some Tibetan dietary supplements.
21. Everyone, including 70-year-old retirees, has a WhatsApp account with pictures.
22. WhatsApp allows you to help out the driver or hunter in case of problems: for example, if he did not return at the agreed time and did not get in touch, the wife makes an alert through the group, and everyone who is in touch helps organize a search and rescue operation.
23. Debt in the store can be paid by transfer from card to card.
24. In the village of Tomtor there is a cafe in the whole district (at least people go there with family and friends, like in a cafe). You can't eat foal there, but you can eat fries and nuggets - for locals it's a delicacy. Upon learning that I was from Moscow, they persistently tried to find out if they got the right potatoes..
25. Of the security forces in the entire Oymyakon Valley, only Tomtor has a district police officer and an investigator. In the rest of the villages, according to the locals, anarchy, banditry and drunken showdown reigns.
26. There is one guy in Oymyakon, I don't remember his name. Once, in a drunken brawl, he was knocked out in the street and thrown. He woke up 15 minutes later, came home, fell asleep. The result is the amputation of almost all frostbitten fingers. Now works as a driver, by the way.
27. There is a local history museum in Tomtor. In it, you can twist in your hands almost all the exhibits, including the carbine of 1764. Visiting the museum is free, but first you need to find its owner. What else to see in Oymyakon.
28. Oymyakonye is famous for its Gulag camps, of which there were 29 in one district. It is said that to counteract the escapes, the NKVD officers promised the local hunters a bag of sugar or flour for each hand of the fugitive brought in (the brush was needed to check fingerprints). The scheme worked. Moreover, the especially cunning first caught the fugitives, forced them to work for themselves for some time, and only then killed them: well, a bag of sugar is not superfluous.
29. In addition to local history, there is a GULAG museum, as the locals call it. It was assembled by a simple rural teacher and is located in the school building. I wrote a little more about him here..
30. Title «Poles of Cold» locals are not particularly proud and would even be glad to officially give it to Verkhoyansk (this is another coldest place in Yakutia, which is already beyond the Arctic Circle). They are a little offended that foreigners come to gaze at them as such losers whom fate has thrown into the coldest corner of the planet..
31. Locals seriously consider their climate to be one of the best, and really wonder why others call it hell. The local history museum has a whole stand about how the Oymyakon air has a positive effect on health. With examples «success stories» famous centenarians.
32. Travels of foreigners often end up with adventures. They tell how some Czechs once drove along the old Magadan highway, and they simply ran out of gasoline. Okay, one of them managed to catch a satellite link and called home. Those have already gone to the Czech embassy, from there to the president's office in Yakutsk, then to Ust-Nera, then to Tomtor, and they have already thrown a cry in WhatsApp. Found them yet «lukewarm». After being rescued from cold captivity, they, to celebrate, bought the locals two boxes of vodka, which made a big party all over the village..
33. Every year in Tomtor at the beginning of April there is a festival «Pole of Cold», to which dead frosts flock from all over the world, as well as numerous tourists, and the festival is as good as they can. They arrange competitions among dead frosts on snowmobiles, deer, as well as - for local girls - «Miss Pole of Cold» and «Mistress of the plague» (stress on «at»). Why is the festival with this name held here in April, and not, for example, in January? They say, at the request of the heat-loving Santa Claus.
P.S. Vitalik does not blog, so here is a link to his Facebook account. You can also read about Yakutsk and Lena Pillars, and also about road to Oymyakon.
