Yakutsk

Yakutsk is the capital and largest city of Sakha, Russia, located about 450 km (280 mi) south of the Arctic Circle. Fueled by the mining industry, Yakutsk has become one of Russia's most rapidly growing regional cities, with a population of 355,443 at the 2021 census. Yakutsk has an average annual temperature of −8.0 °C (17.6 °F), winter high temperatures consistently well below −20 °C (−4 °F), and a record low of −64.4 °C (−83.9 °F) has been recorded. As a result, Yakutsk is the coldest major city in the world (although a number of smaller towns in that region are slightly colder). Yakutsk is also the largest city located in continuous permafrost; the only other large city is Norilsk, also in Siberia. Yakutsk is in the Central Yakutian Lowland and is a major port on the Lena River. It is served by the Yakutsk Airport as well as the smaller Magan Airport. Etymology The city was founded in 1632 by the Cossacks and was originally called either the Lensky fortress or the Yakutsk fortress. The first version of the toponym came from the hydronym "Lena"; the second, from "Yakutia", a synonym for Sakha, eventually became the main one in use. In 1708 it received city status as Yakutsk. History The territory upon which the city of Yakutsk now lies on was inhabited long before the founding of the Russian Lensky Fortress. According to archaeological data (more than 200 sites, settlements, burial sites, and other archaeological monuments have been explored within the city), the oldest of them, the Yubileinaya site, is estimated to be 20,500–10,000 years old. According to legend, the ancestors of the Yakuts, Elley Bootur and Omogoy Bai, settled on the territory of the modern city Archaeological evidence shows the Yakuts settled the Tuymaada Valley in the 13th–16th centuries, as can be seen in the old settlements of Zernovaya-II, Orbita-16, and Vladimirovka-IV, which belong to the Kulun-Atakh archaeological culture, associated with the ancestors of the Yakuts. When the Yakuts, also known as the Sakha people, migrated to the area from other parts of Siberia, they mixed with other indigenous Siberians such as the Evenk and Yukagir. The Russian settlement of Yakutsk was originally founded in 1632 as an ostrog (fortress) by Pyotr Beketov. In 1643, when Pyotr Golovin was governor, the fort was moved to the left bank of the River Lena, in the Tuymaada Valley near Lake Saisary. It was at this location that the fort would become a town known as Yakutsk. In 2024, a corpus of written documents was discovered in Yakutsk, including 14 birch bark letters written in ink in a 17th-century cursive script (with numbers written in letters). Archaeologists believe they belong to the archives of the voivode's chancery, lost in a fire in 1700. One fragment speaks of the collection of yasak. In 2025, a paper letter-appeal was found addressed to Archimandrite Feofan, who was the abbot of the Spassky Monastery in Yakutsk from 1714 to 1719. Climate With an intensely continental subarctic climate (Köppen climate classification Dfc, bordering on Dfd, Trewartha Ecbd), Yakutsk has the coldest winter temperatures for any city its size or larger on Earth. Average monthly temperatures in Yakutsk range from −36.9 °C (−34.4 °F) in January to +19.9 °C (67.8 °F) in July. Yakutsk is the largest city built on continuous permafrost, and many houses there are built on concrete piles. The lowest temperatures ever recorded on Earth outside Antarctica and Greenland have occurred in the basin of the Yana River to the northeast of Yakutsk. Winters are extremely cold and long: Yakutsk has never recorded a temperature above freezing between November 10 and March 14. Summers are sunny, warm and occasionally hot (though short), with daily maximum temperatures exceeding +30 °C (86 °F), making the seasonal temperature differences for the region the greatest in the world at 102 °C (184 °F). The lowest temperature recorded in Yakutsk was −64.4 °C (−83.9 °F) on February 5, 1891, and the highest temperatures +38.4 °C (101.1 °F) on July 17, 2011, and +38.3 °C (100.9 °F) on July 15, 1942. The hottest month in records going back to 1834 has been July 1894, with a mean of +23.2 °C (73.8 °F), and the coldest, January 1900, which averaged −51.4 °C (−60.5 °F). Yakutsk is the largest city in the world with an average winter temperature of below −30 °C (−22 °F). Yakutsk is an inland location, being almost 1,000 km (620 mi) from the Pacific Ocean, which, coupled with the high latitude, means exposure to severe winters and lack of temperature moderation. July temperatures soar to an above-normal average for this latitude, with the average being several degrees hotter than more southerly Far East cities such as Vladivostok or Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. The July daytime temperatures are even hotter than some maritime subtropical areas. The warm summers ensure that Yakutsk, despite its freezing winters, is far south of the tree line. The climate is quite dry, with most of the annual precipitation occurring in the summer months, due to the intense Siberian High forming around the very cold continental air during the winter. However, summer precipitation is not heavy since the moist southeasterly winds from the Pacific Ocean lose their moisture over the coastal mountains well before reaching the Lena Valley. Economy The primary economic activity stems from mining activities in the region, particularly coal, gold, and diamonds, with multiple mining companies having set up their headquarters in the city. Precious stones and metals, particularly diamonds, as well as coal, are Yakutsk's major exports. The export volume was $5.55 billion in 2021, making it the 16th largest out of eighty-five of Russia's federal subjects, although it contracted sharply (under $1 billion) in 2022. Yakutsk Airport is the main airport, and Yakutia Airlines has its head office in the city, operating flights between Yakutsk and other main Russian cities. Tourism as an economic sector plays a small but growing role, thanks to the city's unique cultural heritage and natural attractions such as the Lena Pillars Nature Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the Permafrost Kingdom, which is a tourist complex dedicated to showcasing the unique features of the region's permafrost. With the Lena River navigable in the summer, there are boat cruises offered, including upriver to the Lena Pillars, and downriver tours which visit spectacular scenery in the lower reaches and the Lena Delta. In recent years, housing construction, with an emphasis on providing affordable housing, has been a focus, which was accompanied by the growth in the construction materials manufacturing. A sizeable portion of the republic's agricultural sector is in Yakutsk, which accounts for 89% of the republic's meat and 34% of the republic's dairy production. Culture There are several theaters in Yakutsk: the State Russian Drama Theater, named after A. S. Pushkin; the Sakha Theater, named after P. A. Oiyunsky; the Suorun Omoloon Young Spectator's Theater; and the State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater, named after D. K. Sivtsev. Museums include the National Fine Arts Museum of Sakha; the Museum of Local Lore and History, named after E. Yaroslavsky; and the only museums in the world dedicated to the khomus and permafrost. In September 2020, the Gagarin Center for Culture and Contemporary Art was opened in the Gagarin District of Yakutsk. In 2021, the construction of the "State Philharmonic of Yakutia. The Arctic Center of Epos and Arts" began. The annual Ysyakh summer festival takes place the last weekend in June. The traditional Yakut summer solstice festivities include a celebration of the revival and renewal of the nature, fertility and beginning of a new year. It is accompanied by national Yakut rituals and ceremonies, folk dancing, horse racing, Yakut ethnic music and singing, national cuisine, and competitions in traditional Yakut sports. There is a local punk scene in Yakutsk, with many bands. The city has an increasingly vibrant film industry that has been gaining international recognition over recent years for its unique style and the way its filmmakers portray the region and its people. The regional film industry has come to be nicknamed "Sakhawood". People in Yakutsk wear very fluffy and fuzzy clothing, and in extremely cold weather they cope by sheltering indoors in warm housing, which is believed to lower Yakutsk's increase in winter mortality rates compared to the seasonal rise in mortality seen in milder regions of the world. Demographics According to Rosstat estimates for 2025, the population of Yakutsk is 372,801 in the city proper and 390,236 in the city's urban area, which is more than one third of the total population of Sakha. In the 2021 Census, the following ethnic groups were listed: Yakuts: 59.2% Russians: 26.4% Kyrgyz: 3.4% Evenks: 1.9% Tajiks: 1.7% Chinese: 1.4% Armenians: 1.1% Other ethnicities: 4.9% Religion Orthodox Christianity is the most widely professed faith in Yakutsk, with significant populations of the adherents of Shamanism and Rodnovery. A sizeable share of the city's residents is non-religious. The city's two main ethnic groups, the Turkic speaking Yakuts and the Slavic speaking Russians, are primarily Christian. The world largest temple of the Aiyy Faith is also located in Yakutsk. There is also a mosque in Yakutsk. Administrative and municipal status Yakutsk is the capital of the Sakha Republic. As an inhabited locality, Yakutsk is classified as a city under republic jurisdiction. Within the framework of administrative divisions, it is, together with the settlement of Zhatay and eleven rural localities, incorporated as the city of republic significance of Yakutsk—an administrative unit with a status equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, Yakutsk and the eleven rural localities are incorporated as Yakutsk Urban Okrug. The settlement of Zhatay is not a part of Yakutsk Urban Okrug and is independently incorporated as Zhatay Urban Okrug. Divisional source: Population source: *Administrative centers are shown in bold Transportation Yakutsk is a destination of the Lena Highway. The city's connection to that highway is only usable by ferry in the summer, or in the dead of winter, by driving directly over the frozen Lena River, since Yakutsk lies entirely on its western bank, and there is no bridge anywhere in the Sakha Republic that crosses the Lena. In the dead of winter, the frozen Lena River makes for a passable highway for ice truckers using its channel to deliver provisions to far-flung outposts. The river is impassable for long periods of the year when it contains loose ice, when the ice cover is not thick enough to support traffic, or when the water level is too high and the river is turbulent with spring flooding. The highway ends on the eastern bank of Lena in Nizhny Bestyakh (Нижний Бестях), an urban-type settlement of some four thousand people. Nizhny Bestyakh is connected with Magadan by the Kolyma Highway. Construction of a highway bridge over the River Lena to Yakutsk was approved by president Vladimir Putin on November 9, 2019. Based upon a design submitted in 2008, it will be over 3 km (1.9 mi) long and constructed 40 km (25 mi) upriver at Staraya Tabaga, where the river narrows and does not create a wide flooded area in spring. The cost of the bridge and its 10.9 km (6.8 mi) of approaches was estimated at 63.7 billion Rubles (83 billion rubles including VAT [НДС]), of which a grant of 54.2 billion Rubles was to be provided, with the remainder to be sourced from investors. The bridge will be toll-free for cars, with a toll for trucks. Work commenced in 2024, with an estimated cost of 130 billion Rubles and a proposed completion date of 2028. The bridge had originally been planned to be a dual-use railroad and highway bridge so the Amur–Yakutsk Mainline, the North–South railroad being extended from the south, could connect the city with the East–West Baikal–Amur Mainline. The railroad reached the settlement of Nizhny Bestyakh, on the opposite bank of the Lena from Yakutsk, in November 2011. The 2019 completion of a new rail line to the eastern bank of the Lena permitted the start of passenger rail services between Yakutsk and the rest of Russia. Yakutsk is also connected to other parts of Russia by Yakutsk Airport. Education and research M.K.Ammosov North-Eastern Federal University is in the city. There is also a branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which contains, among other things, the Institute of Cosmophysical Research, which runs the Yakutsk Extensive Air Shower installation (one of the largest cosmic-ray detector arrays in the world), and the Melnikov Permafrost Institute, founded in 1960 with the aim of solving the serious and costly problems associated with construction of buildings on frozen soil. In 2020, with global heating thawing the ground, the institute has the only [the only?] permafrost tunnel in Russia, and is measuring the rate at which the permafrost is thawing, which affects the city as well as the climate. At the primary and secondary levels, the city has a number of UNESCO Associated Schools, including the Sakha-Turkish College, Sakha-French School, Sakha-Korean School, and School#16. Twin towns – sister cities Yakutsk is twinned with: Notes References Bibliography External links Official website of Yakutsk Archived August 12, 2021, at the Wayback Machine (in Russian) Sakha Life Information Agency Archived May 25, 2021, at the Wayback Machine (in Russian) Lena Pillars at Natural Heritage Protection Fund