How to get to Oymyakon – coldest inhabited place on earth

 

Oymyakon

The village is located in north-east Yakutia, Russia. On February 6th in 1933 the weather station has measured a minimum temperature of –67,8°C. This is the official world record in an inhabited place. The –71,2°C from 1926 are unofficial since there were no measurements back in that time. Meteorologists estimated the temperature. 

  

How to get to Oymyakon?

Visa issues

First of all, most citizenships need a visa to enter the Russian Federation. There are several visa agencies you can use. I recommend to visit www.ivisa.com to get your visa for your trip to Russia. This company will help you step by step to get your visa easily. Nevertheless you can apply your visa by yourself at your local embassy but I don't recommend it since the russian visa issues are strict and just some little mistakes in your application can lead the denial of entry into Russia.

 

 

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Basically you have two options to reach Oymyakon:

 

1. By your own

2. By a travel agency (for example: http://visityakutia.com) 

 

I chose to travel by my own since travel- and booking agencies are quite expensive. Nevertheless traveling alone can be dangerous since distances in Yakutia are far away. It can happen that you don’t see any villages or civilization at all for hundreds of kilometers. Make sure you know your way and you can speak a bit Russian.

 

First of all you need to fly to Moscow, the capital of Russia. From Moscow you need to book another plane ticket to Yakutsk, the capital of Yakutia. Yakutsk is the biggest city in north-east Siberia with around 200,000 inhabitants and is well known for the coldest biggest city on earth (temperatures in winter –40 to –50°C, sometimes even –60°C). Once you are in Yakutsk you should check out the city since there is a lot to see such as museums about cold and general life in Yakutia. 

 

From Yakutsk you have three options to reach Oymyakon:

 

1. Rent a car

You can rent a car and drive to Oymyakon by yourself. This option I definitely don’t recommend since road conditions are bad and dangerous. If you have a problem with your car on the road at –40°C you can easily freeze to death and the next village can be 5 hours away.

 

2. Taxi or minibus 

You can order a taxi and a driver will take you there. Usually there are minibuses as well and local people go to the direction of Oymyakon.  

 

The distance between Yakutsk and Oymyakon is around 1000 km and the ride takes about 21 hours and costs arounds 70 EUR. Usually drivers don’t stop or make just a short break. Notice: roads are bumpy. This means it is impossible to sit comfortable.  Furthermore the cars are full packed with people and stuff. It is not the best and comfy way of traveling but an adventure for sure.

 

 

3. By Plane

Book a plane from Yakutsk to Ust-Nera. From Ust-Nera it’s only about 450 km left to Oymyakon. You can take a taxi from there by asking the staff at the airport (30 EUR, 10 hours). Notice: Regular delays because of ice fog and low visibilities occur often, so please bring a lot of time and passions.

 

 

By train

No possibility to reach Yakutsk or even Oymyakon by train. You can take a train to Aldan or Tommot and from there you need a car or taxi to Yakutsk (550 km, 8 hours).

 

Stay and accommodation

There are no hotels in Oymyakon. But it is possible to stay with locals and guest families. It’s not possible to book online. I went to Oymyakon by myself asking the taxi driver if they know a place to stay. People will help you for sure. In the cold nobody would leave you alone. 

 

What to do in Oymyakon?

Once you are there make sure you get the pole of cold certificate from the major of Oymyakon with the daily temperature. It’s now proven that you reached the coldest place in the world. Take a walk through the little village, if you speak yakutian or russian language, try to communicate with locals. People are happy about visit. Furthermore go and visit the school. There you have the only possibility to speak English with teacher and people since many people and inhabitants don’t speak English. It can happen that your guest family where you are staying with don’t speak English and you can’t communicate together. In addition you can do experiments in the cold such as throwing hot water in the air to get frozen, dry your clothes outside and you should visit the local museum. But the most important thing if you travel alone without travel agency: Make sure and ask around how to get out of Oymyakon and back to Yakutsk! 

 

Which place is colder? Oymyakon or Verkhoyansk?

On February 5th and 7th in 1892 a weather station located in Verkhoyansk (about 640 km beeline far from Oymyakon) has measured the same temperature as in Oymyakon: –67,8°C. Since then both villages are “fighting” which village is the coldest. I visited Oymyakon in 2014 and Verkhoyansk in 2017 and local people from each village say they are the coldest of course. However since both villages are holding the world record there is no possibility to say which village is the coldest and which is not. You also have to keep in mind that there are just a few weather stations around the world but much much more places where no measurements are placed. According to reports from local people I have met there are villages which are regular colder at clear sky nights in winter than Oymyakon or Verkhoyansk. To name a few: Delyankir and Yuchugey. Both places are located in the same region as Oymyakon. All in all it is impossible to find the coldest inhabited place on earth. But humans can find the coldest place according to all weather stations around the globe.