The Poles of Cold

The Poles of Cold are one of the most amazing places in Yakutia. There are few areas on the planet with such low tem¬peratures as in the village Tomtor of Oimyakon ulus (that is how regions are called in Yakutia). The Oimyakon Pole of Cold is located in 700 km from Yakutsk. A temperature record of -68° Ñ was regis-tered here.

Of course, there are colder places in the world. For example, Antarctica, where in 1983 the Soviet Antarctic station "Vostok" registered a temperature record of -89.2" C. This is the lowest temperature on the Earth. However, people working in Antarctica, as a rule, stay only for a few months, two winters maximum in case of unforeseen situations. In Yakutia people live permanently; for many of them this area is home.

The vast territory of Yakutia contains one more "natural refrigerator" - the one in Verkhoyansk. The city of Verkhoyansk is located in 650 km from the capital up the Yana river. Winter temperature is extremely low here the same as in Oymya-kon. Surprisingly, in the days of tsarist Russia political prisoners were exiled here. A Soviet geologist Sergey Obruchev, son of a famous writer Vladimir Obruchev, author of the novel "Sannikov Land", explored the Yakut Cold Pole in the 1930s. The traveler wrote that on his way he was accompanied by a strange noise all the time: "As if grain is poured or the wind shakes dry snow from the trees". Obruchev finally realized that it was his frozen breath that rustled. This distinc¬tive sound occurs when temperature drops below -50° C. The Yakuts call it stars' whisper. Wherever a man walks in Yakutia -everywhere under his feet there is permafrost hidden underground, which is 300-400 m and in some places even up to WOO m thick of all the way thoroughly frozen ground