100 Hours In The Coldest City On Earth! (-71°C, -96°F) - Yakutsk, Siberia

I am currently

in the coldest city

on Earth, and right now it's minus 52 outside.

And in these kinds of temperatures, the body can barely survive.

Every breath you take turns into ice crystals when you blow it out.

In just 10 minutes you can get frostbite.

And after only a few hours, this extreme cold can actually kill you.

The coldest city in the world, Yakutsk, is located in the far northeast of Siberia.

In Russia.

And that's exactly why temperatures here can drop to minus 71 degrees.

It's close to the North Pole, super isolated, and it sits in a cold valley where all the cold air gets trapped.

Yes.

Thank you.

Okay, my entire 21-hour journey from Bangkok to Yakutsk was insanely stressful.

Since 2022, all flights from Europe to Russia have been blocked, so I had to enter the country through a complete different continent, so I picked Asia. And once you're in Russia, foreign credit card services are completely banned, so I had to bring 3,500 euros in cash.

Not good?

No, no, no, no.

It's so cold.

From the moment I stepped outside, the hairs inside my nose instantly froze.

And just breathing hurt like hell.

Okay, today it's minus 46 and I am stepping outside of the building, let's see how the coldest city on Earth actually works.

How do people live here, why do people live here?

And let's see how the cold affects us as humans.

Around 300,000 people choose to live here, and they have to survive the extreme cold for three months every single year.

And the rest of the year it will be summer, where the temperature can reach up to 40 degrees.

And in fact, Yakutsk has recorded a temperature range of over 100 degrees, from around minus 64 degrees in wintertime to 38 degrees in summertime.

Making it the most extreme climate on Earth.

And believe me, within just five minutes of being outside, I could see that almost everything was frozen, cars, traffic lights, bicycles, and even people's faces.

So the people leave their cars on when they just are parking outside a building.

Like a grocery shop or a hotel.

As you can see, the gas is still on.

Also here.

And let's see if someone's inside.

There's no one.

So if you leave your car unattended here without keeping it running, the engine oil can freeze within 20 minutes.

Making the car impossible to start again until it's properly heated.

A frozen car.

If you don't warm your car, your car will freeze.

You cannot use it until the summer arrives.

Some people in Yakutsk just park their car outside for the whole winter.

And use it again in the summer.

And if you don't want to do that, there are two other options.

The first option is to use a thick cover.

Called Natasha.

And these cost around 400 euros and can be stored in your car.

Allowing you to wrap the entire vehicle when leaving it overnight.

And the second option is heated garages.

This option is mainly for wealthier people as you have to pay rent to keep your car stored during the winter months.

For how many years have you been living here?

84 years.

84 years.

All life.

All life.

She's living here.

What?

How do you feel about the cold every winter?

It feels normal to me.

Normal?

Normal.

Normal.

Normal.

Normal.

For us, winter is simply winter.

Summer is just summer.

Spring is just spring.

Autumn is just autumn.

Everything is normal.

What is the coldest temperature that you've ever experienced in your life of 85?

Minus 60.

Minus 60.

Minus 60.

Minus 60.

Uh-huh.

Here in Yakutsk.

Yakutsk.

Yes, and then I'm just outside as well.

It's normal.

Normal.

Normal.

Normal.

Uh-huh.

Well, thank you so much.

No problem.

In Yakutsk, you pull out your glove.

And then.

It was nice to meet you.

So in Yakutsk, you never shake hands with gloves on.

It's a form of respect to each other and shake hands with your bare hands.

Let's see how many doors I need to go through until I'm inside.

Let's go.

This is called an airlock, and it stopped the extreme cold from easily getting inside the building.

Pretty obvious when you think about it.

When filming outside, batteries die extremely fast.

Also my front screen turns black most of the time.

Making me just gamble what kind of shot I will get.

How does it feel to wear glasses here in the coldest city on Earth?

If the frame fits well and is made of plastic, for example.

Then it doesn't feel cold.

And it's generally comfortable to wear.

In temperatures like this, you can't wear metal glasses.

Because metal conducts heat extremely well, which means it pulls the warmth straight out of your skin.

And because your skin always has a thin layer of moisture, that moisture can instantly freeze to cold metal.

What is the coldest temperature you've ever experienced in this city?

Around 2017, as far as I remember.

As far as he remembers, back in 2017, he witnessed negative 62.

Holy shit.

You got a frostbite on your skin.

I've got frostbite.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, we need to go inside.

Thank you very much.

It's really hurting my nose.

Like it's a.

We can go enter the warm place.

It's like a becoming a sensitive sport.

Yeah, it has become already.

Yeah.

We were outside filming for about 20 minutes, and if I had stayed out there for another 30 minutes in minus 47 degrees.

I could have lost my nose.

Let me quickly explain how that works.

There are four different stages of frostbite.

The first three are still recoverable.

But once you reach stage four, which can happen very fast at minus 47 degrees if you're not careful.

You need to get to the hospital right away to amputate the black frozen skin.

So for the rest of this trip, I need to be extra careful with my nose.

Pipelines above the ground.

And it actually has a really interesting reason.

So there is a layer of permafrost ice up to 1,000 meters.

That will stay all year around, even when the summer comes.

And therefore putting pipes underground doesn't make any sense.

Like imagine you have to dig the entire city with these pipes.

Down like maybe like a half a meter.

Right, which is quite hard.

Because like you cannot dig like 20 centimeters from there.

Like you saw it yesterday.

It's like permafrost.

Permafrost.

It's like extra.

Yeah.

It's permanently frozen.

Yes, and tomorrow we are going to find out how they actually bury people here.

In this permafrost ground.

Look at this.

What happened here?

A leak.

So this is how a leak looks like.

So as you can see, these are the water pipes.

They transfer the water.

And when there is a leak.

This happens.

So they use the pillars to not freeze the buildings, right?

Or how?

Yeah, and also not let it sink and break.

Did you know that almost all buildings in Yakutsk are built on pillars?

Because if they weren't, they could transfer the heat to the ground and that would make the ground melt a little bit.

And therefore the buildings could collapse because they are used to permafrost ground.

So they tried to fix it here, as you can see.

But it didn't go as planned.

This leak must have been here for like maybe an hour.

Okay.

Because the ground is made up of permafrost.

Permanently frozen ice.

Digging is actually a bit more difficult than you might think.

And that's the exact reason why I am going to film the process of digging a grave.

In permafrost.

What you first have to do is heat the ground with hot coals.

You then leave it overnight and only after that can you dig about 40 to 50 centimeters into it.

Even this is difficult, bro.

Look, it was burning all night, and this is all that came out.

I still here.

So you see, all night it was burning and that's how deep it you can dig now.

Later in the evening, we are going to check out deep graves.

That the grave workers have been working on for over four days.

While I was going back to my hotel to have a rest.

I used public transport.

And funny enough, there is a warm bus stop where you can just chill in 22 degrees.

And when I looked at the bus, there was like a weird isolation thing in front.

And that actually prevents the bus from freezing inside.

So the bus keeps working.

Do you earn more money because it's really cold what you're doing?

There's no such thing as that.

It's either fast or slow.

Either you dig a hole for three days, or you do it quickly.

Same amount of money.

I have noticed in the city that people don't mind the cold too much.

They don't get paid extra.

They just walk outside.

They don't care.

A finished grave like this is 175 centimeters tall.

And when I touched the border of the grave, it just felt like a rock.

And it's also weird to think that these workers need to prepare like 100 graves a week.

And it takes five to seven days of melting the ground to actually finish a grave.

Do you earn more money because it's really cold what you're doing?

There's no such thing as that.

It's either fast or slow.

Either you dig a hole for three days, or you do it quickly.

Same amount of money.

I have noticed in the city that people don't mind the cold too much.

They don't get paid extra.

They just walk outside.

They don't care.

A finished grave like this is 175 centimeters tall.

And when I touched the border of the grave, it just felt like a rock.

And it's also weird to think that these workers need to prepare like 100 graves a week.

And it takes five to seven days of melting the ground to actually finish a grave.

Look at this face.

Well, it's different, right? Morning, evening, there's a difference.

Yeah, this looks unbelievable.

His face is just covered in ice.

It's just totally frozen.

It's actually not that bad.

Well, not from the look at it.

You give him a look so panicked.

And after looking at this.

I am never doing that myself.

While I was inside in the warm cabin.

Changing my clothes, suddenly this guy came out.

And this is actually the guy who took an ice bath with me.

And he actually switched from clothes outside.

In minus 48 degrees.

For how many years have you been doing this?

About 35.

35.

35.

35 years.

As a child, in eighth grade, I often suffered from throat infections.

So this guy had a chronic disease in his lungs.

And when he took daily ice baths, it healed.

And that's the exact reason why he is doing it for 35 years.

Has there any accident occurred in your 35 years of taking ice baths?

No.

Just nothing.

What is the main benefit here?

Immunity.

Most of the time, your immune system is kind of asleep.

But in the cold, it suddenly switches on.

Your body has to survive.

There's one more thing.

People who work outside and deal with the cold.

Brown fat starts to develop.

Children are born with brown fat.

And that's why a baby's chance of survival is so high.

But over time, that disappears.

And that's when people start getting sick more often.

But when you start doing things like this, such as cold exposure training.

That brown fat becomes active again.

I was taking some shots outside, and while I was talking.

You could see the frostbite slowly growing on my nose.

What is this?

Oh.

Well, this is where my trip eventually comes to an end.

With one last frostbite on my nose.

And it made me realize once again that people actually live.

People who have simply made everyday life work.

On every corner of the city, you see creative solutions to fight the cold.

Heated bus stops, pipelines above the ground, insulation cover for cars, and so on.

And to be completely honest, traveling to Russia with the strict regulations.

Seemed more intense than the cold itself.

Because where I expected tension, I found kindness, helpfulness, and humanity from the local people.

And in the end, I truly enjoyed my four days here in the coldest city in the world.