A few things come to mind in association with Yakutia: the numbing cold and the herds of reindeer that roam the taiga. Oimiakon, situated in the eastern part of the republic, holds the record, having seen the mercury plunge to as low as minus 72 degrees Celsius. Yakutia is the coldest region in the Northern Hemisphere. (The Antarctic Pole at the Southern Hemisphere holds the record at minus 89.4 degrees Celsius.) A.F. Middendorf, a Russian historian who traveled to Yakutia in the 1840s, described the bone-chilling cold.
“The hard impression given by the horrible cold is impossible to describe by words: to understand it you have to experience it. The mercury has frozen long ago, so that one can make bullets out of it, or cut, and smith as if it was lead. Iron gets fragile and breaks into pieces like glass upon hitting •••.?br> Spring arrives by mid-March in many places, but in Yakutia, mid-day highs still hover around minus 40 degrees Celsius. Yet Yakut children gathered in the downtown square make play of pulling sleds over the ice. In the market, beef and fish vendors have no need for refrigerators. Fish caught through holes punched in the frozen Rena River, which cut through Yakutia, freeze solid as soon as they are exposed to the air. Thick icicles hang from the big pipes the provide heat for every home. Houses are built off the ground, supported by pillars that are driven deep in to the earth. Here, buildings aren’t constructed on conventional foundations, because with the spring thaw, such buildings would fall.
Travelers arriving at Yakutsk Airport in winter are advised not to take deep breaths. Doing so can cause pin pricking chest pains. The cause? Automobiles exhaust and smoke from chimneys freeze and then hang in the air, ultimately irritating the lung. So the travelers suffer from reduced oxygen intake and consequently headaches and fatigue similar to altitude sickness.

Accounting for one-fifth of the total of the Russian Federation, the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) is roughly the size of India. Most of the land is in a permafrost which thaws to a depth of only three meters even in mid-summer when temperature shoots up to 40 degrees Celsius. As a result, when people dig to construct a building, they sometimes come across preserved bodies of pre-historic mammoths. The Museum of Mammoths in downtown Yakutsk displays parts of a 20,000-year old mammoth. The specimen is so well preserved that you can feel the still stiff hair and wrinkled skin. Walking around the huge skeleton assembled for display, the sound of the magnificent beast lifting its trunk high up in the air and trumpeting its presence seems to ring in the ear.
The symbol of the taiga is the reindeer. The reindeer are used much like the way horses are used in other parts of the world. Hunters typically use six-reindeer sleds over snowy fields in the winter. A specie well accustomed to the forbidding climate, reindeer can run on snow and icy roads at surprisingly high speed. Travelers who ride a reindeer sled for the first time not only have to bundle up, but they also have to take precautions not to get thrown off. There are so many slopes and curvy roads that if riders aren’t careful, they’ll find themselves sprawled in the wake of their sled. Bundling up in wind and waterproof reindeer fur is very important. Without such protection, it would be only a matter of time before the human body becomes numb with cold as the speed of the sled, which averages about 30 to 40 km per hour, combines with the minus 40 degree temperature to make it assuredly the most interesting ride of life.
About one million people make up the population of Yakutia. Russians and Yakuts form the majority, Evens and Evenks, who raise reindeer, make the rest. From the pre-historic era, nomads roamed the taiga in search of pastures to breed their reindeer. But with the beginning of the Soviet socialist system in the early 20th century, they have settled on collective farms. For those living in the taiga and snowy fields, reindeer have become as important as camels are to the dwellers of the desert. Reindeer provide milk, fur, meat, transportation, and recently have become important export commodity for their antlers. In short, reindeer are all around servants for the Yakutia people. For this reason, Evenks say “no reindeer, no Evenks.?br>

Yakutia's Reindeer Festival

Just as farmers in some cultures hold festivals to welcome in spring and give thanks to bountiful harvest, nomadic tribes in Yakutia hold reindeer festivals before breeding season begins in April. Each village organizes a small-scale festival to select the fastest reindeer and the most skillful reindeer drovers. Those selected gather in Ykutsk in another festive to choose the overall winners. Beginning two days ahead of the festival, competing animals are loaded on Kamaz trucks, power Russian made vehicles, to Municipal Stadium in downtown Ykutsk. As the mid-March temperature fall to as low as minus 40 degrees Celsius, the stadium quickly becomes fogged with the reindeer’s breath.. On the first day of the festival, Yakuts dance to folk music as prelude to reindeer-riding and sledding competitions. The moment a starting gun sends the sleds bolting from the starting line, the stadium roars with shouts from the crowd, cracks of whips and calls of drovers pushing the reindeer to their limits. Sometimes, accidents occur in the middle of the track as sleds get tangled and drovers get thrown off. But it isn’t long before they’re back on their feet and struggling to get their reindeer back on track. Snaring and shooting competitions make the second day of the festival. Audiences applaud wildly when young reindeer drovers catch the evading animal in their noose, and when deft marksmen hit the bull’s eye from a great distance. There seems to be a certain magnetic force in the festival that attracts the scattered Yakutia people in a single place to celebrate their culture. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Yakutia is gradually expanding economic exchanges and opening its doors to the outside world. Formerly, the country was know only as a place of exile for political prisoners. But it has now emerged as a place rich with natural gas as well as minerals such as coal and diamonds, both of which are found buried in the basin of the Rena River. Recently, the Yakutia government turned its attention to tourism industry by offering summer cruises on the Rena River. But for those who want a more authentic feel of Yakutia, the time to visit is just before the beginning of winter or at the end of the season. Of course, visitors still have to brace themselves for cold weather. (A trip in the dead of winter is not recommended because you could literally freeze to death.) Visitors will be amused to see that even in the sub zero weather, ice cream sells like hot cakes. And where else but in the wintry Yakutia can you sample naturally frozen and thinly sliced trout that melts like snowflakes on the tongue as soon as you take a bite.