The money they offer in wages attracts miners from all over Russia and beyond.It is the mines that sustain the economy in this barren cold environment.
And without the mines, the town of Oymyakon, which is the coldest inhabited place on Earth, would probably only be occupied in the summer by reindeer herdsmen.When I visited the Badran gold mine, the temperature above ground was -45C. As we drove into the town from the airport, we fell in behind a column of cars on their way to a funeral. Of course, they do know better. Hi/Low, RealFeel, precip, radar, & everything you need to be ready for the day, commute, and weekend!
Source: BBC Weather: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin saw the underground reserves as one solution to deal with bourgeois "enemies of the state," and …
Hot coals are then pushed into the hole and the process begins all over again until the hole is 2m deep.I was beginning to get used to the cold, but I still found it shockingly painful and difficult to operate in.
Source: Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental MonitoringYellow Warning for Forest Fire in effect from 1:00 PM YAKT until Friday, 2:00 PM YAKT. Get your 3-Day weather forecast for Oymyakon, Sakha, Russia. Over the next few months, BBC News correspondents will be exploring eight key themes that illustrate the divisions in our extreme world.One of the first things I noticed in Yakutsk, the regional capital of Sakha province, was that this city must be at severe risk of flooding, as all the buildings were built on concrete and steel stilts, suspending them 2m (6ft) above the ground.But Valentin Spector, a senior researcher at the Permafrost Institute, said the stilts had nothing to do with flooding. These are external links and will open in a new windowIn Siberia, the winter temperature can drop to -60C, making it one of the coldest places to live in the world. It's also cold here. Yet this was a relatively mild start to my 10 days in the region. Then the water's just for drinking and if the truck is late, the eighth day is hell. One tiny bird that beats its wings about 53 times a second and can travel across the Gulf of Mexico without stopping drinks from these feeders.The Statue of Liberty has been an iconic symbol of liberty and justice for all, but weather has drastically changed her look over the years -- and the passage of time changed her intended symbolism.If you're looking to dabble in some stargazing, here are some telescopes that are easy to operate and won't break the bank.Get AccuWeather alerts as they happen with our browser notifications.Yellow Warning for Rain in effect until Friday, 2:00 PM YAKT. This was so cold that after no more than a few minutes outside, exposed skin started to smart with pain, damp surfaces in my nostrils froze, and toes and fingers turned uncomfortably cold very quickly, despite three layers of thick socks and two pairs of gloves. The coldest temperature I experienced in my few days in Siberia was -53C. These are external links and will open in a new window Andrei Dubov, who has worked at the mine for a decade, said the cold was no problem.
There's no fresh water either.The pale green waters of Lake Assal may shimmer invitingly, but they're salty. The only trees that grow have thin needles instead of leaves. Another problem posed by permafrost: how do people bury their dead in the middle of winter? For people living near Lake Assal, in Djibouti, east Africa, it's winter and at 34C, cold. I can't gather my thoughts. Ali Hamid mines salt at the lake, by hand, as his forefathers did before him. I met the academic and historian in his apartment in Yakutsk, where he told me his crime had been just to praise the writings of a Yakut accused of being a nationalist.After a sham trial, he was sent to work in a coal mine.
The permafrost poses many other difficulties. A fire is lit and coals are piled on; after a couple of hours the coals are dragged to one side and the 15cm of ground defrosted by the heat and flames are dug and cleared. I visited the Vadreyev family, who were all born in Ust-Nera and feel they belong to the town and its people. Even though the summers are hot, it takes a long time for the topsoil to shake off the chill, and the growing season for farmers is shoe-horned into a small period of a few weeks.