YAKUTSK RUSSIA -50°C : EXTREMELY DIFFICULT JOBS AND HOMELESS IN THE WORLD'S COLDEST CITY !

In Siberia, Russia, there is a place that is considered to be the coldest city in the world, and as you may have guessed, it is Yakutsk. The biggest challenge for people living in the Sakha Republic in Siberia is surviving the cold weather that persists throughout the year. In this freezing city, people adapt to modern life by working various jobs. Some people train by taking dips in frozen lakes. Others refurbish ships and boats. Still others are homeless and live on the streets. Let's explore how people work in such cold conditions, in a region where the average winter temperature is minus 50 degrees Celsius. During the two-day video shoot, we first observed a local swimmer training in the early morning. He will enter the water of a frozen lake, in an area where ordinary people are forbidden to swim. While this practice may seem unusual and extreme to people far from Siberia, it is normal to the locals. For the Sakha people, entering the water on frozen lakes is a cultural tradition, and they believe it is healthy. Before entering the water, the man removes his thick clothes. Then he runs around the frozen lake briefly to raise his body temperature. He then heads toward the area where the ice has melted. Now he is ready to enter the water. According to the people of Yakutsk, briefly staying in icy water trains the nervous system and blood vessels to withstand extreme cold and strengthens the body's adaptation mechanisms. As a result, a person who goes outside in minus 50 degree weather does not panic when exposed to the cold air and their body perceives it as normal. They also claim that regular immersion in frozen water increases blood circulation and reduces muscle and joint pain. This activity has psychological and religious effects on the local population as well. They believe that entering cold water drives away evil spirits and cleanses the body. Of course, not everyone in the Sakha Republic goes into ice water. There are risks of sudden cardiac arrest, hypothermia and loss of respiratory control. Those who participate in this activity in the city usually know their bodies very well. After leaving the local swimmer, we headed to another part of the city where a television project was under construction. In a region where the air is freezing cold, exhaust fumes create clouds of smog in traffic. The smoke hanging in the air significantly reduces visibility. This illustrates how difficult and risky driving is in Siberia. But is it possible to film a television series in such cold weather while wearing special costumes? When we arrived at the project site, we were not surprised. Because the weather conditions are so harsh, the crew is not wearing special costumes. They are trying to do their work in thick coats. Many of their faces are indistinguishable. Looking at their faces, you can tell they want to finish their work and go home to warmth. No matter how much they try to protect their faces, their eyelashes and eyebrows have already started to freeze. To keep warm, they brought hot drinks to maintain their body temperature. In such cold weather, the film operators are trying to protect their body temperature and their camera equipment. The colder it gets, the more fragile the mechanical parts become. The camera screens freeze and the batteries don't work at full capacity. They make more effort than usual to avoid getting sick and to protect their expensive equipment. This is what the scene looked like from the other side. They are trying to fish by drilling holes in the frozen lake. When we returned to the city center in the middle of the day, we saw an unconscious man walking on the road. There was something strange about his expression. We soon found out that he was homeless and living on the streets. Obviously, he doesn't look very healthy. It must be very unfortunate to live on the streets of the coldest city in the world. When we asked him where he slept every day, he said he didn't have a fixed place. In this city, the floors of buildings are frozen with ice, which never melts throughout the year. Therefore, it is almost impossible to find warm under buildings where homeless people can shelter. Since the city's natural gas pipes run above ground, he says he tries to sleep close to the You might wonder whether the municipal authorities are helping them. There are social guest houses in the city center of Yakutsk for extremely cold times. The police direct homeless people to these guest houses. This is to prevent people from freezing to death. However, many homeless people do not want to go to these guest houses. Most of the homeless people in Siberia are alcoholics and elderly. These people do not like to be managed or restricted. Living in a guest house and following rules is not ideal for elderly alcoholics. It is often quite difficult to see a homeless person walking around Yakutsk. This does not mean, however, that there are no homeless people in the city. They try to survive in closed spaces, secretly and out of sight. As a result, the homeless man accepts financial help, but does not want to live in guest houses. In the evening, we learned about one of the most interesting professions in Siberia, Russia. In the landlocked city of Yakutsk, people work as ship and boat repairers. If you look at a map of the city, you will see that a river runs through the middle of it. They call this river the Lena River. Between June and September, when the weather starts to warm up, these rivers create jobs for fishermen who fish with boats. Yakutsk has plenty of fish markets, and the locals even eat the fish frozen and raw. The extreme cold in the region makes agriculture impossible, so people's main sources of food are land animals and sea fish. Similarly, ships transport food, fuel, building materials, and machine parts to other Siberian cities close to the river. We found a man refurbishing these boats and ships and asked him to show us his workspace. He picked up a chainsaw and showed us his work. At first glance, you might not make the connection between ship refitting and chainsaws. On average, ships are immobilized on the riverbanks or towed ashore for eight months of the year. In this city, where temperatures can reach minus 71 degrees Celsius, stationary ships start to freeze after a while. To prevent further icing, the ice on the ships is cut off at regular intervals with these electric saws. This ice cannot be broken with sledgehammers or pickaxes. Doing so could cause cracks in the ship's hull. Chainsaws, on the other hand, cut the ice cleanly and in a controlled, linear way. This allows people like this man to clear the ice without burdening the ship's hull. The cut ice cubes are also useful for families in the region. Since the water pipes in their houses are frozen, they use the ice cubes for water for toilets and cooking. Families with pickup trucks come to these shipyards to load the ice and take it home. There are many ships on the frozen river, which means this shipwright has to work constantly. There is no clear definition of this profession in the literature. They are called ice cutters and river maintenance workers. It is considered one of the most difficult professions in the world. They cut ice stuck to ship hulls and open the river's water line. They also repair ship propellers. Those in the profession have numb fingers during the day. They cannot feel their limbs while working. They say that breathing becomes difficult and painful when the temperature drops below minus 50 degrees Celsius. There is also a risk that their skin will stick to frozen metal surfaces if they touch them with bare hands. This is because in Yakutsk, metals stick to heated meat when they come into contact with it. This creates the risk of skin breakage. Furthermore, chainsaws are very heavy and not everyone can hold one for hours on end. Long-term use of a chainsaw can lead to joint and neurological diseases. It is said that people in this profession earn a total of during the winter season, that is, over a period of several months. That's more than The motionless ships in the frozen river resemble a scene from a movie. A few months later, these frozen ships will be sailing in the melted river. The next day, in the early morning hours, we visited a livestock breeder in a village near Yakutsk's city center. In one of the coldest regions in the world, people engaged in animal husbandry struggle to survive in harsh conditions and must keep themselves and their animals alive. Cows are the main source of food in this region. Milk, cheese and meat are seen as guarantees of survival in the Sakha Republic. That's why people living in the countryside just outside the city raise their own cows, like this man does. He wakes up before dawn to prepare feed for his cows in the barn. He collects the cow's dung from overnight and stores it outside. The manure is also a good source of insulation. The outer surface of barns is covered with thick layers of dung because it is a natural heat preservation system. Similarly, barns are built with low ceilings. In a barn with high ceilings, it is colder inside and heat is harder to retain. Thanks to their small barns, the temperature inside can reach plus 10 degrees Celsius when it is minus 50 degrees Celsius outside. After cleaning the barn daily, the calves need to be fed. Since the calves drink milk instead of eating hay, the farmer must help them. The villagers are also responsible for milking the cows. Thanks to this milk, the Sakha people are able to consume fatty, milky foods and survive. The cows must be taken out of the barn for a short time in the middle of the day. This is because it is freezing cold in Yakutsk at night and in the morning. Taking the animals out at these times can cause them to get sick or even die from the cold. The hottest time of day is around noon, so the cows should be outside for about half an hour then. Cows confined to the barn all day are exposed to high humidity, urine, manure odors and unhealthy air. Going outside for a short time refreshes their respiratory tracts and fills the barn with fresh air. The cows get their water from holes drilled in frozen lakes. You may also notice that when they roam outdoors, their lactating udders are tied with thick cloths. This is to prevent frostbite. This is because the udders which produce milk are thin-skinned and highly vascularized. This makes the area vulnerable to rapid freezing. Exposing a cow's udder to extreme cold can kill the milk-producing tissues, causing inflammation and permanent damage. That is why Yakutsk farmers protect their cows to the best of their ability. The Sakha people don't just keep cows. Similarly, they raise Siberian horses, also known as Yakutsk horses, on farms for food. In the Sakha Republic, almost every animal is a potential food source. In addition to fish and beef, horse meat is consumed there as well. Horse meat is a high-energy, high-protein food for humans. It provides long-lasting energy and helps people stay vigorous in difficult conditions. So when you see horse farms in Siberia, know that the horses are raised for their meat, not for riding. These horses can survive outdoors even at minus 50 degrees Celsius without getting sick. When we returned to the city center of Yakutsk in the afternoon, we met a man who works as a courier in the city. People living in the coldest city in the world don't leave their houses unless they have to work or want to brave the cold. If they need to buy groceries, they rely on couriers, who also work in other parts of the world. Couriers wait for orders to arrive at the warehouse, which stocks a variety of food and cleaning supplies. The warehouse clerk takes note of orders for new products as they are sold. Orders that come into the computer system are placed in thick, cold-resistant bags and delivered to addresses by electric bicycle. These thick, insulated bags prevent the food from freezing. The courier says that his job is more difficult than that of any other courier in the world. The battery on his electric bike freezes in extremely cold weather, so the bike won't start. He also says that the navigation device and phones he uses to find addresses often turn off. He mentions that power goes out in buildings from time to time, so it is risky to use elevators. In such cold weather, he is exposed to the open air while delivering orders to people's homes. That's why he wears cold-resistant thermal coats, thick felt boots, fur gloves and face-covering headgear throughout the day. When we left the courier and walked around the city, we came across locals building a wooden house. The most notable thing was that the house was made of wood, not concrete. Detached houses are preferably made of logs because concrete conducts heat. Not only will a concrete house transmit the cold outside into the house, but it will also send the hot air inside out of the house. This makes staying warm difficult. Similarly, in Yakutsk, the ground is frozen, so when concrete structures heat up, they damage the ice floor. This causes the foundation of houses to deteriorate, leading to subsidence and collapse. Concrete is also expensive, and the average family in Siberia may not be able to afford it. Wooden houses, on the other hand, are easier to build and more economically viable. This is why people in the Sakha Republic can build their own houses with wooden materials. In such cold weather, people try to keep warm by wearing warm clothes and working on the construction of a wooden house. Just as everything living and non-living in Yakutsk needs protection, cars need protection, maintenance and repair. In the coldest city in the world, cars can break down at any time, leaving their owners stranded. This is why every local man must be a car mechanic. They always carry car repair kits with them. While walking around the city center in the evening, we saw a huge vehicle stuck on the road, which these men were repairing. They were trying to repair the stranded vehicle. The batteries of vehicles across the city are not working at full capacity and are susceptible to freezing. If the problem isn't caused by the battery, the engine oil can freeze and thicken from the cold. This prevents the starter motor from working. Another reason cars break down and won't start in such cold weather is because of broken or cracked hoses or gaskets made of rubber or plastic. These men are trying to figure out exactly what is causing the problem. In Yakutsk, every man must be his own car mechanic. If their car doesn't start, they can't move and their whole life falls apart. By the way, this huge vehicle looks really cool. Current gasoline prices in Russia are about 80 rubles per liter. Therefore, we can say that one liter of gasoline is one dollar. In this video, we showed you the types of work that people in Yakutsk, the coldest city in the world, do to earn money and survive in the winter. Support us by liking the video and leaving positive comments. Your support ensures that new videos like this one will be made. See you soon!