How to Budget Travel to the Coldest Town on Earth

There’s no place permanently inhabited by humans as cold as Oymyakon town in Russia. The average temperature drops to -50 degrees celsius (-58 F) during with the coldest temperature ever recorded at -71 degrees celsius (-95.8 F). Unlike Antarctica, Oymyakon has a seemingly regular life with a school, grocery shop, vodka and people going about their simple hunting-oriented life.

They say that birds in this town of around 500 people die of cold, mid-flight. 

Anshu Saxena, 37, an accounts manager with the Food Corporation of India was keen to explore how cold can it possibly get on earth. But travelling to the “pole of cold” is not easy, especially in peak winters. 

Preparations range from trying to source clothing that ensure you don’t freeze over to navigating group packages and language barriers. There are preventive medicines such as the topical gel for frostbites. You calculate your pee breaks and mentally prepare for a diet of primarily salted meat without fiber. 

Those looking for a photographic journey would be disappointed to learn that camera lenses freeze over and the battery does not operate at such temperature. An attempt by Saxena to click a few photographs of driving on the frozen Lena river resulted in painful blue fingertips within seconds, which had to be immediately warmed using the car’s heater. When the nearest proper medical facility is at least a day’s journey, you want to be careful.

We caught up with Saxena to know his experience of travelling to such a cold place which has got no hotels, and more importantly, to know why one would do this.

VICE World News: Why would you voluntarily go to a place where even bacteria freezes over?
Anshu: I love the cold, the mountains and the adventure of great outdoors. There’s a huge novelty aspect to exploring such a remote place.

How do you get to a place where roads are frozen and flights don’t exist?
There are several tourist companies that charge a few INR lakhs for a private trip. But I wouldn’t recommend that. I just did a lot of research on my own and booked my flights to Novosibirsk via Moscow, where I met some strangers off Tinder and explored a few touristy places. From Novosibirsk, I went to Yakutsk where I took a group tourist package to Oymyakon which is a 1000 kilometers road trip, and takes three days.

What’s travelling 1000 kms through a frozen landscape like?
The roads are picturesque with endless forests and completely frozen rivers. You share a cab in a package to save costs and cross the Kolyma highway, also known as the “road of bones”. It was built during the Soviet Era using hundreds of thousands of gulag slaves whose bodies were crushed into the road in permafrost.

How touristy is Oymyakon?
It is loved by extreme travelers. However, it is not much explored much. Even Russians almost never visit Oymyakon in winters. You get a certificate recording the temperature of the day from the government. It was -53 degrees celsius when I got there. As per my certificate, I was 947th visitor from all over the world in Oymyakon, and according to my guide, possibly the third Indian to visit.

What’s routine life like in minus 50 degrees?
Practically everything you can imagine freezes at that temperature. Mercury freezes at -38.83 degrees celsius. So locals use alcohol thermometers. The cell phone battery drains out in less than 30 seconds. To click a photograph, you have to keep the batteries and phone in your inner layers, quickly swap them, click photos and repeat. Touching anything metallic without gloves means your skin would peel off. Cars that cannot be parked in heated garages have to be kept running nonstop all night.

What do you actually do there apart from focusing on not dying while visiting?
The main occupation of the people in Oymyakon is hunting, ice-fishing, apart from breeding reindeer and horse. There is a primary school, but those wanting to study further have to move out to the nearest civilisation being hundreds of kilometers away. The nearest dentist, for example, is about 750 kms away.

What do you eat in a place where nothing can ever grow and boiling water freezes in milliseconds?
It’s practically a carnivore diet of reindeer and horse meat. Spices are almost absent. Raw ice fish with salt is a popular dish which I didn’t find as palatable but I ate anyway. Vodka is comically cheap and very potent. Ice cream is at -15 degrees celsius, but outside weather is -50 degrees, so they joke that to get warm they eat ice cream!

How do you not die in that weather?
You layer up a lot with double socks and caps and cover your nose and eyes. No Indian company manufactures clothing ideal for that temperature. If you have the budget for several thousands, there are Russian polar bear fur jackets but I bought the best I could from India, that sort of worked. I would recommend buying fleece and socks and valenki shoes and caps from small shops in Russia itself. Since indoors are always constantly heated, it’s actually very comfortable indoors unlike an average winter night in Delhi.

How does one use toilets in a place where water freezes over?
All houses have an outdoor toilet because plumbing freezes over. This is basically a shed with a hole in the ground. You do your business as soon as possible and come back within a minute because you risk frostbite to your genitals. There is no shower because there is no running water. There are only Russian steam rooms called banyas.

Would you recommend visiting it to others?
Very much to those who genuinely enjoy the cold. It’s such a remote part of the world. Just see how your body reacts trying to not freeze over. It is a testimony to our nature to survive where there’s almost no other life.

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