A few years ago, the Moscow-based Independent correspondent Shawn Walker arrived in Yakutsk, the administrative center of Siberia’s Republic of Sakha-Yakutia, in the deep winter. I think it was January. So, he wanted to visit Oymyakon, but he was lack of time adn eventually he didn’t make it to that coldest inhabited village.

Shawn returned to Moscow and wrote and an article with many Yakutsk winter images. He called his piece “Journey to the coldest city in the world.” That was like a bomb in the UK

Since that moment, mass media started to use the phrase “the world’s coldest city” for Yakutsk in their own stories. That’s actually true. Oymyakon, for instance, is not the city, it is a small village, though it has -60C as the average temperature in the late December and January.

Meanwhile, we are taling about Yakutsk City and its winter with -50C and -52C. That’s the temp we’ve got this week. Enjoy photographs.

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Today we had -51C (-59.8F) in a daytime, though in the morning a local meteo station registered -49C (-56.2) that meant school free time for kids of 1st to 8th grade. Anyway it’s bitterly cold.

Below, watch two short videos I made today during the lunch time.

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Feel Yakutia in winter a little bit. Put the photo of Oymyakon’s Indigirka River on your desktop.

Download wallpaper: 1366×768, 1280×800, 1024×768, 1280×1024.

Today is the Russian Xmas! The right time to say “Merry Christmas, friends!”

See more Xmas tree on our facebook page http://www.facebook.com/eYakutia.

The photographs were taken on the road between Oymyakon and Khandyga in the mountain part of the Kolyma Highway known also as Stalin’s Road of Bones.

When we were driving, the outdoor temperature was as low as -55C. In the beginning of the way, i.e. in the village of Tomtor in the Oymyakon area, we registerd -57.3C. Extremely cold. Not surprised that the Kolyma road is considered by many as the coldest one in the world.

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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.

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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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Survived young Yakutian cows in North Yakutia, Siberia / Russia. Photo from SakhaPress.ru

These three poorly-looking young Yakutian cows are big news in Russia. No kidding. They were lost in the autumn near the settlement of Sakkyryr in Eveno-Bytantaysky National District of North Yakutia, Russia, and managed to survive in taiga in extremely cold weather and got back home alive.

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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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