96 Hours in the World’s Coldest City (-64°C,-84 °F)

How do some humans survive in conditions most of us wouldn't last more than a few hours in? From the excruciating heat of the Sahara desert to the freezing cold of Siberia, humans have somehow figured out a way to call almost any place home. But how could a population in the coldest city on earth of over 300,000 people be able to survive century after century in a climate with temperatures averaging below minus 40 degrees celsius in the winters with the coldest temperature ever registered at minus 64 celsius. To dive deep into understanding these people but also to explore Ammar's superhuman relationship with the cold in which although he was born and raised in the desert of Egypt, he breezed through our entire experience in the freezing cold with Wim Hof exactly three years ago with ease compared to everyone else when he kept this composure to direct the filming of the experience. Ammar was now back in January on his way to the city of Yakutsk, the coldest city on earth on historically the coldest day of the year. Yeah it's cold. First thought, it's cold. Confirmed. Myth busted. Okay so I came all the way to the coldest place on the planet because I wanted to make a very very special announcement about something I've been working on for over two years and it's only fitting that I announce it from the coldest place on the planet. Stay tuned, make sure that you watch until the end and I promise you won't regret it. Just kidding. But this trip would never have happened without our friend Drew Binsky who just recently finished traveling to every single country in the world and told Ammar at the start of the year about his upcoming trip to Yakutsk where Ammar saw the perfect opportunity to put his relationship with the cold to its ultimate test. Now back in January although tensions were high we never expected Putin to have started such a devastating war with Ukraine. As you saw in our last video where our donations have now passed almost $800,000 to help the refugees, this deeply affected us. We hope that this story can only show you even more how much of a waste and tragedy war is when we realize how much we truly have in common. All right we are starting off our Yakutsk adventure by going to the fish market, the fish and the meat market and this is already one of the craziest things I've ever seen. What the f**k? Dude the fish is just a block of ice. They're completely frozen. They don't need freezers because the outside is the freezer. Wow it's so solid. What's the coldest day you've ever experienced? Minus 16. Minus 60. Is this horse? So you eat horse here? I've never had horse and I never thought I would ever have horse but it looks like we're gonna have horse here. How you doing? How are you? I'm Amar. Amar, nice to meet you Mike. How do you survive the winter here? I don't know man. I really don't know. Seriously it's so cold here. And now it's warm you know? Yeah. God damn. You know and this big question. I don't know why we are here. Masha, I guess it's like our super ability. Super power. We adapt. Yeah. Humans adapt to the environment. Yes. This is the magic thing. We're not surviving. We're living. Just look around. Yeah. There's people. What's your name man? I never asked you. Mike. True. Pleasure to meet you here. Okay great. Amazing. Mike is gonna join. Perfect. We just met Mike. People all around the world are amazing. Yeah. That's my mission. The man who's hit every single country in the world. How long did it take you? It took me 10 years to visit every country man. 10 years? Non-stop travel. Wow. And it's cool to say in the past tense like I've been to every country. Yeah. Like it's really cool man. This is my first trip since I've been to every country. Oh my god. And this is your first trip since you got your passport. Yes yes. Iconic man. It is really great. I don't understand it but there's such a deep connection to the snow and to the cold and I have no idea where it originates. I am from the desert. I grew up having really hot summers. I remember in the first week of university I asked my friends to take me to see snow. So I had them take me on a hike that was 11 kilometers to go there and my instinct at seeing snow for the first time was to take off all my clothes and just jump straight in. Ever since there's always this fascination and draw towards anything that is cold or extreme. Okay we just got to the permafrost museum which basically tells the history of how they built this town because the entire town is built on pillars. You can't really build foundations into the ground here because of how cold the ground is. It basically pushes everything out. You also can't bury people which was the same in Svalbard when we went. Apparently here we'll get to go underground and actually see the see the permafrost layer into the in the land here. Oh dude look at this. Look at this man. Around two-thirds of the country is covered by permafrost. Permanently frozen ground that never melts. Even in hot temperatures in the summer where the weather can reach 34 degrees Celsius, only a small layer is affected. Only two meters melts in the summer. The rest of it stays frozen. How? But it's 40 degrees outside in the summer. Wow. It's somewhere the same. The picture is same. So outside even it's so hot the ground still stays this block of ice. So hot like 40 is super hot. The permafrost runs from just below the surface of much of Siberia to sometimes thousands of meters underground never melting. And as more and more of it melts because of climate change however they've been finding tons of bones and fully preserved extinct animals deep underground. Oh my god. What is that? It's a baby mammoth. What? Baby mammoth? Wow. The age of it is 39,000 years old. This is one of the craziest things I've ever seen. Preserved because they found it in the ice so it's like really really whole you know. This is this thing is 40,000 years old. For the people of Yakutsk to be able to make buildings hold they've had to dig deep 8 to 18 meters below the ground to create much stronger anchors for their structures and deep underground those pillars are visible. All this ice has preserved so much of our knowledge and our understanding of the planet because things are perfectly preserved. Yeah like like the mammoth. Like yeah that mammoth. The fact that we can look at a living organism from 40,000 years ago and be able to even like she was explaining there the earth samples that they're digging up and the fact that they're able to know what viruses and bacteria and the emission levels co2 all these different. All the answers are in the cold. Exactly. Exactly. That's the one. That's the line. This is what it looks like to go on the world's coldest run. I'm loving it. Ammar has always been obsessed with immersing himself in extreme cold environments whenever he gets the chance but this was about to be the coldest one yet. We are currently driving on a lake. I've never driven on a lake before. I thought it was pretty scary. In the coldest place in the world where it currently is minus 40 degrees outside Ammar is going to do a cold plunge underneath a frozen lake and attempt to stay in the ice for more than five minutes. We're going He's a man who's been doing cold plunges every day for the past 30 years. You're going to be my coach here throughout the next hour. I got you. I got you. I think there's the ice bath right there. Let's meet the man. The myth. The legend. Hi. Ammar. Nice to meet you. Look at the hole man. Have you ever done an ice bath? No. No. I hope we bring Wim here one day and he gets to meet the Russian walrus. He basically he's been doing this every day for 30 years and every day he has to come and break it first because it freezes overnight. Wow. I don't even think Wim has done ice bath every day for 30 years. I mean certainly not in the world's coldest city because this is this is a whole other story. He says that when he was in eighth grade he was getting sick a lot and so he heard that this was a method to help train your immune system and so he started coming here and swimming every day and ever since then he almost never gets sick. He says that the coldest that it's ever been when he's come here to swim is negative 58 degrees celsius. You swam in 1958? Bro. I don't know why I'm so joyful right now. It's like I'm about to go into the extremest of things. All right. It's the world's coldest sponge in the world's coldest city. Walrus. Okay get the handshake from the pastor. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for allowing us. Here we go baby. Ready? Yeah, Drew. Let's do it baby. Get in. Get in. Get in. You're good. Get down. Get down. You're good. Get down to here. Here we go. More. More. Then remember that it's warmer in here than outside. Yeah. Amazing. Doing great. I'm alive. I'm thriving. It's cold. I'm gonna get out. Okay. Oh, I can't feel anything. All right. I am currently doing the world's coldest cold punch in the world's coldest city. I feel like I am in my element. Yeah, we did it. I can't believe we're here. I can't believe we just did this. It is minus 33 outside. Look. Everything is just freezing. Just everything instantly freezes on top of your body. So far, Ammar and Drew had spent almost all of their time near the Yakutsk city center. But to better understand how generations of Yakutsk people have lived here for hundreds of years, they decided to accompany Maria to the outskirts of the city to meet up with her shaman, who has been living in this house with her family all her life. We just got to the countryside. We're going to be seeing how they live out here, which is supposedly very different than life in the city. It's great luck that Olga, my guru, my shaman, has invited us. We're very honored. It's so wild to see animals in this temperature. Curious cow. Oh, f**k. This is the drinking hole for the cows. I asked if we could jump in and he's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. How does the water not freeze when you... Every day. Broke ice every day. Every day? Yes. There is one man for every water drinking. And everybody pay to him and he every day break ice. And this ice drink we people. Oh, this is for your drinking. Yes. It's amazing. So, wow. This is, all of this is what they drink. We prepare this ice. Yeah. Like how long would this last you? For one month. One month. Okay. This is ice for our drinking. Yeah. Today we bought it, paid 3,000 rubles. 3,000 for three cubes? Yes. So that's like $40? Yes. Wow. These are the kind of things that you never think of, like how people actually live in places where water instantly freeze or there's not water for miles. The problem solving that humans just got to do throughout history. Summers here are 40 degrees Celsius and winters can get to minus 59, minus 60. It is arguably the biggest variance in temperature in anywhere around the world. There's a hundred degrees between the summer and the winter. Marina, how long do you think you would survive if you took off that jacket and you were just like walking out here, like until you would, you wouldn't make it anymore? Five seconds. I'll I'm very happy to be a Kutian because I'm loved in it. Yeah. Yes. It's wonderful place for me. A little bit cold. Yeah, of course. But it's amazing for me. Yeah. Yes. Because we have our traditions and I respect it very much. So what is that? I don't know. She's saying that in villages that are further away, this is how they go to the bathroom. The bathroom is located outside of the house. Even if in the middle of that you want to go, you walk outside and you actually. Every morning, every evening in minus 50, minus 45, you have to go out to do your little or big things. Every day. Oh my God. I love all guys. Oh, slowly. Okay. It's too cold. Thank you for letting us come here. Hello. Nice to meet you. I feel so lucky that we just get to be in like a local family's house. Also, it's worth mentioning that Drew is his first American that he's ever met. Have you ever met an Egyptian? First time? I gotta give that Egyptian a hug. The people of Yakutsk are incredibly unique in that they are actually indigenous to this Siberian region. Long before the Russians arrived and colonized the area in the early 17th century. The Republic of Sakha, the region Yakutsk is located in, is actually today one of the semi-autonomous republics within Russia. But exactly when the indigenous people migrated here still seems unclear. The Yakutsk may have settled in the area as early as the 9th century or as late as the 16th century. Fleeing from the expansionist Mongolian empire, many tribes were forced to move higher and higher up north with the resulting cultural melding that occurred between these incoming migrants eventually creating the Yakuts. The official languages of this region are Russian but more interestingly also their native original tongue Sakha, also known as Yakut, spoken by 47% of the population including 87% of the Yakuts themselves. So this is how they cut the frozen fish. So they do stroganina. Basically this is like frozen sashimi. Wow strong man, very strong. So essentially what she's saying is that it's really important what you eat here in Yakutia to stay warm and the part of the fish that he's cutting right now helps you stay warm. Have you ever had raw horse before? Uh no man. I've never thought about it. I've never ever thought. Ready for some ubaha? Oh my god. I have never in my whole life thought I would be eating a horse. It's actually pretty good. Yeah. I genuinely really want to come back. So we're gonna arm wrestle? Yeah. Now the horse is here and we can arm wrestle. Wow his wrist is so strong. I was not expecting that at all. What would you like to tell people? I want to tell one big thing. Always believe in yourself. Always. And you have to know that everything is love. Everything is peace. If you are in balance, if you are happy and if you have open your heart so you can live this life in another level. So it's not difficult. You have not to do something very strong for it. Believe in it that everything will be okay. One thing that you have to believe it's your heart. All of questions you can find in your heart. But your heart will be open. Amen. I had so many goosebumps when she's speaking because it's coming from her heart straight to our heart. This is some Yakutian deep knowledge right here. We're just leaving this lovely family's house. Honestly one of the most inspiring moments I've ever had on our travels. Getting to get such an authentic look into their lives and how they what they eat how they live what they believe in was such an honor and I feel very grateful that they opened their home for us and let us in. It might be the coldest city on the planet but truly some of the best people ever. We have set the goal to create the most impactful documentary ever made on YouTube and give the chance to 10,226 of you to become our partners on it. Back in 2019 we released a documentary Behind a Paywall. Over 60,000 of you decided to support us and paid to watch the film even though it was made clear that it would eventually come out on our YouTube channel. Because of the kindness and backing of all of these people we were able to make the film and put it out to the world for free. This model showed us the potential power of our community empowering big scale projects that traditionally would not have been made possible without a big brand investor or a production company funding it. And about two years ago after finding the perfect story that embodies the core spirit of Seeking Discomfort we decided that it was time to make our first feature-length documentary and push the limits of our storytelling. Anders was the perfect man for the mission with an aspiration to become the first human to complete an Ironman distance triathlon in Antarctica. We sponsored Anders with our brand Seek Discomfort and helped him find the perfect team to go to the end of the world with him and bring back the most impactful story that we can possibly tell. The team returned safely from Antarctica on the day of global lockdown on March 14th 2020. 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A way that could change how independent films are made forever and carve a new path for storytellers around the world. The goal here was to evolve the concept of crowdfunding to something that could give you a deeper sense of ownership into a project beyond a thank you note or a receipt for your pledge. So how did we do it? We've created an opportunity for 10,226 of you to participate in this project through four different tiers using the blockchain technology. What does this mean? It means that by choosing to be a part of this project you'll get a digital asset or an NFT to prove your ownership and outline what you'll get in return in terms of utility. We've designed this NFT project in a way that allows anyone who's never been exposed to the technology to be able to participate easily and only using a credit card. In a few clicks you'll be able to own your first NFT and keep it in a wallet we'll create for you or enable you to add it to your pre-existing wallet. 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