"The world is so big, you don't go out and look at it, you don't know how cold it is." This sentence is for those who feel that opening the door like opening a refrigerator as soon as they enter the winter, because they do not know that "there are people outside the people, there is a day outside the sky", and the "cold" they experience is nothing at all!
The two coldest human settlements in the world are Shangyansk and Oymyakon, both located in the territory of the Sakha Republic of the Russian Federation. Our focus today is on Oymyakon, which is about 5300 km from Moscow, close to the Arctic Circle, with coordinates of 63.402 north latitude and 142.148 east longitude, which is called the "cold pole of the world".
The lowest temperature recorded in Oymyakon occurred on January 26, 1926, when the temperature reached -71.2 °C. Although many questioned the veracity of this unofficial record, the temperature of -67.7°C officially measured on February 6, 1933, made Oymyakon the "Cold Pole of the World".
The average temperature in Oimiakon in January is -47 °C, and in the hottest month of July, the average temperature in Oymyakon does not exceed 15 °C. Every year between 25 October and 17 March, temperatures in Oymyakon rarely rise above 0°C.
Such an extremely cold place, not uninhabited, there is a small village where more than 500 indigenous people live, they are Yakuts, Oymyakon means "unfrozen water" in Yakutia.
Oymyakon's coldness is far beyond our imagination, don't believe you to take a look:
1. In Oymyakon, you spit on the spit, and before the spit lands, it may have frozen in mid-air.
2. People there rarely use pens because pen water freezes and it is impossible to write at all.
3. When walking on the street, you'd better hide from the mirror, because the next second it may be frozen and broken.
4. In such a low temperature environment, the steel bar will also become brittle, so don't say that you have a "steely will" there.
5. In Oymyakon mobile phone and other electronic products will consume power quickly, go outdoors to answer the phone, the mobile phone may be frozen off. The cameras that tourists carry there can also be frozen to focus.
6. Where you own a regular car, it may become a decoration because the temperature is too low and the car is difficult to start unless you leave the car in a warm garage.
After you start the car smoothly and drive out, don't easily turn off the engine halfway through, because once it is turned off, it will be difficult for you to start it again.
It's better to drive in a straight line, but once you turn it's time to test your skills, and the wheels will fly out of the axle.
7. In Oymyakon, it can be a nuisance if someone dies. Because Oymyakon is so cold, there is a large amount of permafrost under the surface, and if the deceased is to be buried, the permafrost must be melted.
This is not an easy task, because people can't stay outside for a long time, lighting a campfire to thaw the permafrost for two or three hours a day, and after a week the depth of the thawed permafrost is enough to bury the deceased.
The extremely cold weather in Oymyakon has caused a lot of inconvenience, and the Yakuts who live here have moved away one after another, and the village was inhabited by about 2,000 people a decade ago, 800 people in 2018, and now only more than 500 people remain there.
How did these people who stayed in Oymyakon live? Let's take a look:
In such a cold environment, solving the housing problem is a top priority.
As mentioned earlier, Oymyakon is full of permafrost, where it is difficult to build a house. In addition to considering the warmth of the house, people also face many serious problems, such as the difficulty of beating the foundation into the permafrost; once the frozen soil becomes very soft, it will cause the house to sink.
Therefore, people generally build houses in the summer, so it is easier to lay the foundation. When building a house, it is necessary to ensure that the house is about 1 meter above the ground, so as to play a warm role. To prevent the house from sinking when the permafrost melts they have to support the house with multiple thick wooden sticks.
The Oymyakons have a separate heating system in their houses, and they go up the mountain to cut firewood or use coal to heat themselves.
Don't look at Oymyakon's extreme cold, but the indoor temperature is kept at about 20 ° C, and they live a life of "wrapped in mink on the outside and bare waist on the inside".
The weather is cold, Oymyakon people must choose the best warm performance of the clothes, plush leather pants, mink coats are a must, in addition to the preparation of hats, scarves, gloves and so on.
Every time they went out, they had to wrap themselves tightly, revealing only two eyes, and even then their eyes were often covered with white frost. The Oymyakons spend almost half of their total living expenses on clothing.
Living in Oymyakon, the diet is relatively simple, because the temperature is too low there, most crops cannot grow, and many of their food needs to be transported from other places for long distances. However, the vegetables, fruits and other items transported to Oymyakon do not have to worry about preservation problems at all, because there is a natural "big refrigerator".
Because agriculture was underdeveloped, the villagers of Oymyakon could only survive by hunting and fishing. Villagers go hunting in the nearby mountain forests or fishing in glacial lakes. Fish caught there and brought home are frozen fish from hard states, because after people catch fish from under the ice, they usually throw the fish on the ice, and it only takes a few minutes for the fish to freeze into ice.
In order to resist the cold, the Oymyakon people will choose some high-calorie foods, such as butter, cheese, fatty meat, etc., they like to eat barbecue, fat meat with pickled sour cucumbers, very delicious. They also like to eat "frozen fish fillets", using a sharp planing knife to cut frozen fish into slices, dipped in jam, salt and other raw food, I think the taste should be unusual.
In addition, they also like to drink whiskey and other spirits, many people will carry a small bottle of wine when they go out, take a sip when it is cold, and warm up. However, this small bottle of wine is also to be carried close to the body, and it must be a high number of wines, otherwise it may also freeze. Because 60 degrees celsius wine freezes at -80 °C, and 40 degrees celsius wine ices at about -25 °C.
As mentioned earlier, the car in Oymyakon is not the best means of travel, in addition to being difficult to start, it is not easy to control, because once you brake, you may face the danger of the car slipping.
In Oymyakon you can find sporadic Ural buggies and Ulyanovsk jeeps that are easier to start when heated by a blowtorch flame.
Compared to cars, locals prefer to travel on a reindeer-pulled sleigh. Reindeer are their loyal companions, they are not afraid of the cold, they are expert runners in the vast snowy plains, riding on the sleigh pulled by reindeer, smooth and safe.
In the extremely cold land of Oymyakon, there is a perennial hot spring that does not freeze, and the villagers call it the "Fountain of Life", which nourishes generations of Oymyakon people.
The spring water is clean and can be drunk directly. Every day, there are special people in the village who are responsible for transporting the spring water to each household.
In addition, the villagers will melt the ice and snow as domestic water, and the local ecological environment is well protected, and the ice and snow are not polluted.
There is only one road in Oymyakon that connects to the outside world, known as the "Frozen Road", also known as the "White Bone Road".
Because of the cold weather, the road is frozen for many years, even if the summer melts a little, the coming winter will freeze the pavement, so the pavement will become potholed, like scattered white bones.
There is also a saying that when this article was first repaired, because it was too difficult, many people lost their lives, so it was called "White Bone Road".
In any case, this road is the "life path" of the Oymyakon people.
The most painful thing for the Oymyakons is to go to the toilet, because their toilets are all built outdoors.
If the toilet is built indoors, then there must be sewer pipes, because the presence of permafrost makes it quite difficult to lay these pipes, and even if it takes time and effort to lay successfully, because the weather is cold, the excrement will freeze in the pipe and cause the pipe to block.
In the weather of minus tens of degrees, running outside to go to the toilet is not pleasant, especially at night, from the warm bed to run outside to go to the toilet, the "sour" degree can be imagined.
Although Oymyakon is cold, the children who live there also have to go to school. There is a school there where children go to school on time whenever the weather permits. There is heating in the classroom and it is not cold for the children to learn inside. Children can take the school bus to and from school, but because it is too cold, the school bus sometimes breaks down and gets stuck in the snow.
When the temperature drops below -52°C, children in the lower grades are suspended from school. When the temperature drops to -56°C, the upper grade children do not have to go to school.
In recent years, the extremely cold place of Oymyakon has aroused the interest of many people. Every year, many explorers and travel enthusiasts go there to experience the "cold pole" life. In addition, many scientists come to Oymyakon to study the reasons for its cold, and the only hotel in Oymyakon is often booked by scientific research institutions!
What are the reasons for the cold in Oymyakon?
High latitude and short sunshine hours
Why is Oymyakon so cold? High latitude is the main reason. Earlier we mentioned that the coordinates of Oymyakon are 63.402 north latitude and 142.148 east longitude, close to the Arctic Circle.
High latitudes lead to short daylight hours. The length of the day in Oymyakon around the winter solstice is generally less than 5.5 hours, and December to January of the following year is the shortest period of daylight in Oymyakon.
Because Oymyakon's geographical location is close to the Arctic Circle, although there is no polar night phenomenon there, its sunshine time is not much longer than that of the Arctic.
Terrain reasons
Many scientists have pointed out that places with higher latitudes than Omiakon abound, but cold places like it are only in Kayansk. Obviously, the high latitude is only one of the reasons why Oymyakon is an extremely cold place, and another important reason is the topography of Oymyakon.
Oymyakon is located in a basin surrounded by the Chelski And Vilkhoyonsk Mountains to the east, west and south. Warm air from the south is blocked out, while cold currents from the north can descend down the valley, rush directly into the basin and stagnate and accumulate at the bottom of the basin for a long time, so Oymyakon, who is in the basin, is unusually cold.
High altitude
We all know that the higher the altitude, the lower the temperature. For every 100 meters above sea level, the temperature drops by about 0.6 °C. Oymyakon is above 2,000 meters above sea level, which results in temperatures that are 12°C lower than at the same latitude.
Some people think that the Oymyakons have never experienced heat in their lives, but this is not the case. On July 28, 2010, Oymyakon also experienced a high temperature of 34.6 °C. The temperature difference of more than 100 degrees between summer and winter makes Oymyakon people realize what is the "double heaven of ice and fire"!
On June 20, 2020, the temperature in Shangyansk reached 38 °C, another extremely cold place, with a maximum temperature difference of 105.6 °C for the year.
Our country is rich in land, and there are also many cold places. Many people think that China's "cold pole" is in Mohe, Heilongjiang, but this is not the case. China's real "cold pole" is in Genhe City, Inner Mongolia, where the average temperature throughout the year is -5.3 °C, the lowest temperature recorded in history is -58 °C, and the annual heating period is up to 9 months.
Living in such a cold place is certainly a lot of inconvenience, but there should also be a lot of fun. "The parents who gave birth to me, the homeland of those who raised me", no matter what the climate is, as long as it is hometown, it will give people warmth.