Happy New Year, friends!!! Wish you all the best dreams to come true!!!! Thank you for staying with Yakutia the last year. Let’s do it again in 2012

Meanwhile, enjoy the New Year fireworks happened in Yakutsk, Russia.

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Yesterday I just stood a little bit near the New Year tree installed recently on Lenin Square in Yakutsk City, Yakutia, Siberia / Russia, and took my chance to take a picture and make a video.

The photo is above. The video is inside the post. Read the rest of this entry…

Winter starts from Yakutia! This is how a new travel project is called. What’s that? A good question.

Officials, who are responsible for tourism development in Russia’s Republic of Sakha-Yakutia, have been thinking over tricks of attracting tourists to Yakutia. They spent much time on that work. Indeed, it was a hard mission.

Yakutia is located pretty far away and, moreover, it’s huge and impossible to travel across in a short span of time and see all exotic things at once. What to do?

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This Tuesday Boeing 747-800 arrived in Yakutsk from Seattle for low temperature testing.

As reported, it’s still at Yakutsk Airport. Currently, we have -40 degrees Centigrade.

This morning we had -42C in Yakutsk, Yakutia, Siberia / Russia. At last, real winter arrived.

See today’s photographs of the extreme cold winter… and stay tuned, as the day is not over yet. More pictures are coming.

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A friend of mine, Vyacheslav Ipatiev, who is the founder and CEO of YakutiaTravel LLC, has developed a new unique route for extreme cold hunters.

He gives a chance to embark an adventure journey on reindeer sleds across the Valley of Oymyakon, one of the coldest parts of Yakutia, Siberia / Russia.

10-day sledding in the Siberian extreme cold weather. From the village of Uchugey to the village of Oymyakon. The temp is as low as -55 C or even less. And, yeah, night spending in nomads’ sleeping bags in nomads’ tents. In short, it’s the coolest expedition experience!

Cold hunting trip description is available here.

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In the early November, Yakutsk-based Vladimir Potapov (fb profile) arranged the winter snowmobile expedition to the Arctic zone of the Republic of Sakha-Yakutia (Siberia/Russia).

The route was Ust Kujga (map) – Kazach’e (map) – Laptev Sea.

The mission was to deliver the remains of the Yuka Mammoth from the area of the Yukagir community, Laptev Sea, to Yakutsk. It is the same place, where the famous Yukagir mammoth head was discovered seven years ago.

The Yuka mammoth corpse was found in the well-preserved condition by Vasily Gorokhov’s community four years ago. It has four legs, proboscis, and wool.

The expedition was filmed by BBC TV Channel and scheduled to be on the air on February 25th, 2012. It will be a 60-min story.

See more Arctic expedition photographs taken by Egor Fedorov.

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This morning I went out for a regular dog walk. With Ogonyok, 1-yo Yakutian laika (learn more about this dog breed), we headed to the anabranch of the Lena River located just in front of the block I live in.

In summer, it is visited mostly by city people striving for swimming. In winter, it becomes a sort of Mecca for ice fishermen. This day was not exception. On the ice, we spotted a dozen of men sitting with rods and bending over holes.

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A railway station in Nizhnyj Bestyakh in front of Yakutsk on the opposite bank of the Lena River. Photo by Dmitry Medvedev.

Yep, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Yakutsk. He arrived right from Hawaii this night.

The purpose of his official visit is to discuss the issues related to housing and communal services and participate in the opening of the last constructed branch line of the railway Berkakit – Tommot – Yakutsk in the settlement of Nizhnyj Bestyakh. This place is located in front of Yakutsk on the opposite bank of the Lena River.

Amazing! The half of the day I had been waiting from local journalists for any photographs of the event, especially of the Nizhnyj Bestyakh event. But… it appeared to be Dmitry Medvedev, who took a picture and uploaded it on his Twitter account @MedvedevRussia.

President Medvedev said that the railway must come to Yakutsk via the bridge over the Lena River, not through the tunnel.

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Today, October 27, 2011:

October 26, 2011:

October is a very controversial month in terms of weather. On October 1st of the current year, Yakutsk had intensive snowing. We could say, Oh, winter arrived, but it might sound as a big delusion. In a few days, snow melted and the golden autumn got back and, moreover, it returned with summer-like rains.

This week was also crazy. On Monday and Tuesday, it was above zero. Today, Thursday, it’s already -17C and yesterday -3C with real winter blizzard. Do you think it is the climate change effect? Actually not. Usual October. Though many say winter came late this year.

No more words. Keep watching this year’s winter start in progress. I put all my pics together in the reverse chronology so you could feel the difference or its absence. Photographs were mainly done by different mobile cameras and shared @yakutia on Twitter and on my personal fb page.

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