Yakutsk (Siberia)

Yakutsk is considered to be the coldest city in the world. Built on permafrost it's got about 200,000 people, but it's in such a small area as it's all Soviet housing blocks so it was quite interesting to see. For more details on Yakutsk I found this website which is pretty interesting: http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/europe/yakutsk-journey-to-the-coldest-city-on-earth-771503.html

True to the name of the blog I arrived in Yakutsk, Russia on Monday morning. I flew 7 hours East of Moscow in coach with a six hour time zone difference. Upon landing in Yakutsk we got off the plane on the tarmac and had to shuffle across snow and ice to a bus which took us about 100 meters to the airport exit - there's no where to walk to the baggage claim. We found our driver at 6am in the pitch black and got to sit in an old Soviet van which looked like a VW Bus until the bags were transferred to the baggage claim which was a separate unheated building. There was only one door in and out of the baggage claim and everyone had to show their baggage coupon and compare it to the ticket on the bag in order to get out the same door people were trying to get in while only one person was performing this check - chaos of course.

The van then took us along ice covered roads at approximately 30 km/h to our hotel which is quite amazing, I never would have expected one this nice in the middle of nowhere Siberia but that is not the case at all. (http://www.alrosa-hotels.ru/en/hotels/poljarnay_zvezda/)

After the first day of work we went to a restaurant in another hotel which we were told has Yakutian national meals. On the menu I saw a meat platter which was noted to be a national dish - upon arrival it was cold pieces of meat, pretty much corned beef, salami, and jumbo - needless to say I wasn't too impressed with the national dish.

On the last day of the trip we went to a restaurant recommended at the hotel that would also be a cool place to spend a Friday night apparently. When we got there it had a steep cover charge according to my staff, and it wasn't worth it so we decided to go somewhere else. It was quite cold when we were waiting outside for our cab and it didn't seem as if it were coming so we got in a car with two guys in there twenties as they offered a ride. It seemed as it they were driving us somewhere shady to take our money. We tried to get out at a light but realized the doors were locked and the guys up front said that everything was OK and they were taking us where promised. I really had no idea, and didn't trust them, but it was also in single digits outside, so it wasn't as if I could have walked back to the hotel, I couldn't call another cab (don't speak Russian, or know the phone number), so we were pretty much stuck and hoped that the beer guzzling (while driving, almost like Guinea) driver took us where promised. Eventually we did arrive to a bowling complex, and got inside, ordered some food and beer and bowled a few games. I wouldn't argue that I "fit in" everywhere I go in Moscow, but certainly more-so than in Yakutsk as most people looked more Chinese than Europea although this should have been expected based on the location of the city.

I've included some pictures of Yakutsk below, I wouldn't recommend going for any tourist activities. I didn't take these pictures they are just pulled from the internet, but it's about what it looked like.