Yakutsk is a large city located in the Far East, in a territory with a harsh climate and frosty winters. Here lives a quarter of a million people, mostly Russians and Yakuts. This city can be called quite successful economically – it’s not for nothing that people from neighboring villages and villages come here to find work. Nevertheless, people who come from afar, the local weather may seem too cold in the winter season.
Yakutsk is the largest city among those located in the permafrost zone.
Since Yakutsk is located in the north, in summer there is a period of “white nights”, and in winter the sun is shown only for 3-4 hours.
In winter, the air temperature in Yakutsk can drop to -60 degrees. Once the snow fell there even in June. In summer, the sun heats the city to +40 degrees. Thus, the annual fluctuation of temperatures in Yakutsk is one of the largest on the planet.
In Yakutsk there is a republican library for blind people.
Yakutsk is the largest of Russian cities, which has no railway communication with other parts of the country.
In 2007, the route connecting Yakutsk with Tulun was included in the register of federal roads. In reality, however, this road does not exist. One of its sites is suitable for travel only during the 3 winter months, the other – turns into a swamp during the rains, and the rest have long required reconstruction.
In Yakutsk there are no trolleybuses, no trams – only buses and minibuses.
In 2014 Yakutsk hosted the first world championship in mas-wrestling, the national Yakut sport. Athletes rest their feet on the board and try to pull the stick out of each other’s hands. The winner is the wrestler who won in two rounds.
The tower of the Yakut spur was for a long time part of the local museum of local lore, but in 2002 it was burnt because of a childish prank. Then it was recreated according to old drawings and installed in the “Old Town”, where all the historical sights of Yakutsk are collected.
In Yakutsk you can look at a real mine dug in permafrost. A well over 116 meters deep was dug for geological research, and then it is recognized as a monument, and now it is protected by the state.
Yakutsk is one of the most overcast Russian cities.
Yakutsk began to develop actively at the end of the XIX century, when deposits of gold and then diamonds were found nearby.
The city has an airport, but it can not take airplanes for most of the year because of extremely low temperatures.
The permafrost, on which Yakutsk was built, has not unfrozen for several millennia.
In 1985, there was born a million citizen. His family was presented with a four-room apartment, and a motorcade with a bright poster “Millionaire resident of Yakutsk” made a circle of honor around the city.
The first bus appeared on the streets of Yakutsk in 1936. The trip then cost 50 cents.
The first resident of Yakutsk, who became the owner of a foreign car, became the head of pharmacy number 1.
In 1905 the owner of the metalwork shop Elena Surovetskaya became famous for the whole city and went down in history, as she drove along the central street of Yakutsk in a man’s suit and a bicycle.
In 1832, the authorities of Yakutia purchased for the city needs the miracle of the technique of that time – the “fire-fighting machine”. The novelty cost 858 rubles 70 kopecks. For comparison, in the cities of the Russian Empire in this period it was possible to rent a room in a tavern for 50 kopecks, as much as a pound of tea, and a grammar school teacher earned 800 to 1000 rubles per year.
In Yakutsk there is a unique museum of mammoths, where you can see the remains of these ancient animals, as well as woolly rhinoceros, well preserved in frozen ground.
