It's minus 50 in Russian city of Yakutsk; dress like cabbage, say residents

Temperatures have plunged to minus 50 degrees Celsius this week in Yakutsk during an abnormally long cold snap in the Siberian city known as the coldest on earth, reports Reuters.

Located 5,000 km east of Moscow on the permafrost of the Russian Far East, residents of the mining city often see the thermometer regularly drop well below minus 40.

“You can’t fight it. You either adjust and dress accordingly or you suffer,” Anastasia Gruzdeva, outside in two scarves, two pairs of gloves and multiple hats and hoods, told Reuters news agency.

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“You don’t really feel the cold in the city. Or maybe it’s just the brain prepares you for it, and tells you everything is normal,” she added in the city shrouded by icy mist.

Dress like cabbage

Another resident, Nurgusun Starostina, who sells frozen fish at a market without the need for a fridge or freezer, said there were no special secrets to deal with the cold.

“Just dress warmly,” she said. “In layers, like a cabbage!”

With no signs of this long winter coming to an end, residents are fearing that it may impact the energy infrastructure in the city.

Bursting pipes

“Pipes are bursting, heating tanks are breaking down, everything is hard frozen. The local authorities were not prepared for this situation at all,” a resident told Metro newspaper.

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Another local complained that their gas boiler had frozen solid, a daunting situation in a town where wintery conditions stretch from October to April.

“Batteries burst in the apartments of many residents, and sewer pipes froze,” they said.

(With Agency inputs)