Ayar Kuo is a photographer of Yakutia. Love her last set of black-and-white photographs dedicated to ordinary Yakut villagers. Hope you’ll like people’s portraits too. They are very authentic.

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Here is the story. Alexey Pavlov is the famous photographer in Yakutia. Yakutsk-based TAYA Model Agency has many beautiful young women. LenaTourFlot LLC has a pretty old, but stylish Soviet passenger ship that tends to make journeys between Yakutsk and the Arctic settlement of Tiksi. Yakutia has the awesome magic Lena River.

So what do you think Alexey did? He travelled with TAYA models on the Mechanic Koulibin ship to the Lena Pillars, one of major geological monuments on the Lena River, and brought a bunch of great photographs. Take a look and enjoy!

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Yesterday I started using the Instagram iPhone app. My god, I fell in love with it. Take a look at photographs of Yakutsk (Yakutia, Russia) taken by the iPhone and uploaded on the net with the help of Instagram. All of them instantly appeared on my Twitter account @yakutia.

In pictures: a couple on Ordzhanikidze Square, Russian Airborne Forces celebration on a fountain, the rainy morning and the British motor bikers, Ed and Ben, ready to ride to Magadan through Stalin’s Road of Bones. A story about these motorcyclists are coming soon on AskYakutia.com.

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It is the 2nd part of the post Momsky Park in the Republic of Sakha-Yakutia, Siberia/Russia. This time see 32 summer and autumn photographs.

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Winter is magic in Yakutia, indeed, but summer here is gorgeous! Need a proof? See 39 summer pictures of Momsky National Park below.

What is Momsky Park? It is located in the northern-eastern part of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), precisely in the area of the upper and lower area of the Moma River in Momsky District. It occupies 1959.9 square hectare or, if with Eselyakh Reserve, 4361.3 square hectare.

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This is really great! Received a message from Antoine Corbisier-Baland. He is a a Belgian tutor, who teaches the French at North-Eastern Federal University (former Yakutsk State University). Antoine sent his black-and-white photographs of Yakutia. I think, his pictures are great! Interesting and captive!

In the above pictures: 1. On the river in October. 2. Crossing the Lena River on the way to Amga.

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Enjoy khomus (Yakut Jew’s harp) music and images of Yakutia in the amazing video slideshow created by Marianna Leontieva in 2008. The author lives in Moscow and she called the video “Khomus… A Yakutian’s Nostalgia…” Think, no additional info is required.

By the way, Yakutsk will host the 7th International Jew’s Harp Society Congress on June 23-26, 2011. It will be held right before the Yasyakh national holiday celebration in the area of Ys Khatyn near Yakutsk. My god, my fingers are crossed, don’t want to miss this must-be-awesome event.

Download the Congress Program (pdf, 525 Kb).

The government of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) has a good habit. In each February, regional high officials travel across Yakutia, the biggest Siberian region with 3 million sq km, and give people a report on what was done in the course of the previos year. It is a sort of direct communication between ordinary people and authority representatives.

Frankly saying, I can’t remember when such practice started being exercised. Maybe, 7 years ago. In the beginning, people were sceptic to such sudden authority travels. They thought, “Well, it must be another form of telling people how good the authorities are, and, please, do a favor, vote for them in the upcoming elections.”

Irrespective of such attitude, people decided to take advantage of such direct chats with the repulic’s government officials, i.e. President, Prime Minister, Vice PM, ministers and deputy ministers. Dwellers of remote settlements started to share their own local urgent matters and problems. Like “Could you allocate funds for improving communal systems?”, “Is it possible to construct a hospital in a village? Currently we need to find a car, pay for fuel and travel hundred of kilometres to the nearest regional hospital.” or “Would you say the government to give us a truck?” and so on, and so on.

Many issues are raised and, finally, included in the list of required actions for the republic’s government. If any of stated problems wouldn’t be resolved, following year people would say, “You didn’t do what you promised. What the hack do you do in Yakutsk? Just spending budgetary funds?” To avoid accusations, officials try to redeem all given promises.

Such tradition, certainly, is good. At least, officials must see, how people live in the far-away places, and check, if municipal ‘bosses’ say truth in their annual reports.

Oops. The current post is about to give brief insight into people’s life in Yakutia’s northernmost region of Anabar located in the Polar Circle. Below, please, see Nyurgun Stepanov‘s photographs. He visited Anabarsky Ulus as a member of one of the above described republic governmental delegations.

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This time we proudly present another talented young artist from the Siberian region of Yakutia. It’s Anna Osipova (her page at ArtBreak.com).

Anna graduated the Far Eastern State Academy of Arts. Currently she creates her masterpieces at the Ural-Siberian studio of the Russian Academy of Artists. Her early works were inspired by the North and reindeer herders’ life. How it was strong, check yourself.

Below find Anna Osipova’s paintings. Read the rest of this entry…

Bernard Grua is a French photographer. I thought photography is his job, but it appeared to be his hobby. Besides, he fell in love with the Siberian region of Yakutia. Isn’t it great? By the way, these winter pictures from his recent (second) visit to Yakutsk. Ok, no more words, enjoy his photos.

Bernard Grua’s Flickr photostream.