While frigid temperatures have been recoded in the U.S. this year, residents of Yakutsk – the capital city of Russia’s Sakha Republic in eastern Siberia – bundled up this week to face a minus 80-degree Fahrenheit temperature.
“Just dress warmly,” said resident Nurgusun Starostina, according to Reuters. “In layers, like a cabbage!”
Starostina sells frozen fish at a market, said the outlet.
She doesn’t need a fridge or a freezer.
According to CNN, temperatures in Yakutsk is one of the world’s coldest cities. Even so, temperatures this cold haven’t been recorded there in more than two decades, per meteorologists cited by the outlet.
Back in 1971, a minus 80-degree temperature was recorded in the U.S. state of Alaska, according to the National Weather Service. It remains the coldest temperature recorded in the country as of December 2022, said The Weather Channel.
As of 7 a.m. EST Saturday, the coldest temperature recorded in the U.S. was minus 20 degrees in Cokeville, Wy., compared to Detroit’s 35-degree temperature. Per The Weather Channel, Yakutsk was at a balmy minus 55 degrees as of Saturday.
Yakutsk is around 3,100 miles from Moscow and it is situated on the Lena River, according to North-Eastern Federal University. Its roots go back to 1623, when it was a wooden fort used by Russian Cossacks. Today, it is a big mining city with hundreds of thousands of residents as well as several museums and entertainment venues.
“The city of Yakutsk presents a mixture of modern tall buildings, Soviet time blocks of apartments and old wooden houses,” said the university. “The city was built on permafrost, a layer of frozen soil hundreds of meters deep which never melts. Most of the constructions are on stilts so that the heat from the buildings does not melt the layers below.”
During the winter months, Yakutsk is shrouded in “habitation” fog. This fog “is brought about when the air is so cold that hot air from houses, people and cars cannot rise,” the university explained.
“If you plan to come to Yakutsk in winter you should take the warmest clothes possible – fur hats, woolen scarves, mittens, warm boots, winter coats,” it said. “The locals wear long fur coats, reindeer fur boots with thick felt soles, fur hats.”
“You can't fight it. You either adjust and dress accordingly or you suffer,” said Anastasia Gruzdeva, who Reuters said was outside this week in two scarves, two pairs of gloves and multiple hats and hoods.
“You don't really feel the cold in the city. Or maybe it's just the brain prepares you for it, and tells you everything is normal,” she added.
January is the city’s coldest month, according to CNN. Outside of Yakutsk, other parts of Russia are also experiencing a cold snap this winter, the outlet said.
