February 20, 2013

Oymyakon


source :  http://i.dailymail.co.uk

Russia

Oymyakon is a small town in Northeasten Russia. It's the Pole of Cold. Average temperature in June is -50C. The lowest ever recorded was  -71.2C.



The 'Pole of Cold': The average temperature for January in the Russian village of Oymyakon is -50C, with -71.2C the lowest ever recorded temperature


Frost bite: Traffic lights are covered in snow and ice in the village which is the coldest permanently inhabited settlement in the world
Icy load: Ruslan, 35, loads blocks of ice onto a truck outside Yakutsk in the valley where nothing grows so people eat reindeer and horsemeat

Alone in the ice: A lone man walks across a courtyard in the village, home to around 500 people, which was, in the 1920s and 1930s, a stopover for reindeer herders who would water their flocks from the thermal spring


Winter mooring: Ships moored on the banks of the river, where ironically, Oymyakon actually means 'non-freezing water' due to a nearby hot spring


Treacherous drive: A car drives through the snow at night near Vostochnaya meteorological station where locals are said to leave their cars running all day for fear of not being able to restart them


Heavy cover: The houses in the village of Tomtor in the Oymyakon valley where most homes still burn coal and wood to heat and enjoy few modern conveniences
Heavy cover: The houses in the village of Tomtor in the Oymyakon valley where most homes still burn coal and wood to heat and enjoy few modern conveniences
Winter washing: Igor Vinokurov, 25, knocks the snow and ice off washing frozen on the washing line in the Oymyakon valley where locals are acclimatised to the weather unlike any other country
 Winter washing: Igor Vinokurov, 25, knocks the snow and ice off washing frozen on the washing line in the Oymyakon valley where locals are acclimatised to the weather unlike any other country 


Quick dip: A man takes a dip in the icy waters of the Lena River inside a tent to celebrate Orthodox Epiphany on January 18

 Quick dip: A man takes a dip in the icy waters of the Lena River inside a tent to celebrate Orthodox Epiphany on January 18
Deadly dive: Alexander Gubin, 43, prepares to dive into the frozen Labynkyr Lake, some 62 miles south from the Omyakon valley
Deadly dive: Alexander Gubin, 43, prepares to dive into the frozen Labynkyr Lake, some 62 miles south from the Omyakon valley
Ice maiden: Ice sculptures on the Lena river, created for the Orthodox Epiphany celebration in the valley where daily living problems include pen ink freezing, glasses freezing to people's faces and batteries losing power
Hard day's work: Lumberjacks Alexey Egorov, 45, and Semion Vinokurov, 53, cut down a tree in the forest outside the village of Tomtor in the valley


Sustenance: Lumberjacks Alexey Egorov, 45, and Semion VInokurov, 53, (left to right) lunch in the cabin of their truck in forest outside Tomtor. Doctors say locals don't suffer from malnutrition is that their animals' milk contains a lot of micronutrients


Friendly fire: A dog lies on wood shavings near a woodstack in the valley where coal deliveries are irregular forcing the power station to start burning wood

Snow-capped town: The village of Tomtor, the village that is the coldest permanently inhabited settlement in the world


Nomadic no more: Smoke rises from houses as residents try to keep warm in the depths of winter where, in the 1920s and 1930s, it was a stopover for reindeer herders until the Soviet government made the site permanent in efforts to settle nomadic people

Wintry weather: Meteorologist Sergei Burtsev, 41, prepares to launch a weather balloon to record the temperatures where the length of a day varies from 3 hours in December to 21 hours in the summer


Warm inside: Nikolay Vinokurova, 7, and his sister Vera, 9, have lunch at their grandmother's house in the valley where the solitary school only shuts if temperatures fall below -52C

Oymyakon winter

Oymyakon winter
Winter wonderland: The weather gets so cold here that pen ink freezes, glasses freeze to people's faces and batteries lose power

A minibus drives along an ice road across the Lena River where there is sunlight for just three hours each day in winter

Men take refuge in the cabin of this truck in the village of Ytyk-Kyuyol where if the power ceases, the town shuts down in about five hours, and the pipes freeze and crack


Yakutsk Village of Oymyakon


An East Siberian Laika puppy

A young East Siberian Laika in Oymyakon

Cows walk back to their sheds after watering in the thermal spring

Oymyakon


Farmer Nikolai Petrovich waters his cows



Cows walk back to their sheds after watering in the Oymyakon thermal spring

Oymakon village at dawn with a plume of smoke rising from the heating plant



Oymyakon


A petrol station on the road to Oymyakon
A petrol station on the way to Oymyakon. Cars are generally  left running full time by locals who fear they won't restart if turned off

Oymyakon's only shop

 Oymyakon's only shop caters for the needs of the village's 500 people
A man leaves his van and walks into Oymyakon's only shop

A man leaves his van and walks into Oymyakon's only shop as paper waste is burnt in a 40 gallon drum
A view of Stalin's 'Road of Bones', the route to Oymyakon, on a -50c evening





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