The ‘Iron Lady’ of Siberia Invites You to Visit Yakutsk, the World’s Coldest City
Sardana Avksentyeva swept to power as mayor of Russia’s diamond capital in September.
Sardana Avksentyeva is now winning admirers nationwide, as she bans lavish town hall parties and sells off plush official cars.
Ruffling political feathers she certainly is, but the 48 year old mayor took time out from her war on waste to use The Siberian Times to invite the world to visit one of the planet’s most extraordinary cities.
If even once in your life you want to feel real, epic cold – just for just a day or two perhaps – then Yakutsk, capital of Yakutia region also known as the Sakha Republic, is the place to come.
Within a few weeks now, as it does annually, the city is likely to experience severe winter temperatures of around minus 60C and it is increasingly attracting foreign visitors from many countries who have her city on their bucket lists because they want to taste such cold.
How do people survive in these temperatures, in a city of 282,000 people literally built on permafrost?
Come here – a six hour flight east from Moscow, or a three hour journey north from Vladivostok – and discover ultimate cold, and a genuinely warm welcome.
WELCOME TO YAKUTSK!
Sardana Avksentyeva, the Mayor of Yakutsk. Picture, video: The Siberian Times
As Avksentyeva says in a new video aimed at visitors and released today by The Siberian Times: ‘Everyone who considers themselves a traveller, who knows the world, who is fascinated by all the most unusual and interesting phenomena on our planet – must visit Yakutia.’
Wearing the national dress of her republic, she stresses: ‘Those who never came to Yakutia, you did not see the whole world.’
Not that it’s just the cold: this is the place to come for the best-value diamonds and silver jewellery anywhere, superb culinary surprises, sights you will see nowhere else – and above all the rich and vibrant culture of the Yakut peoples.
Diamonds at the Treasury of Yakutia. Pictures: The Siberian Times
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