A village of 500 people in northeastern Siberia where the temperature once dropped to -71.2°C, cars must run continuously to avoid freezing solid, and the ground is permafrost all the way down.
Oymyakon holds the record for the coldest temperature ever recorded at a permanently inhabited location: -71.2°C in February 1924. The thermometers used to measure that temperature broke before the reading was confirmed; the temperature was estimated by the speed at which mercury solidified. Mercury solidifies at -38.8°C. Whatever broke the thermometers was much colder.
The village has a population of approximately 500 people. They have lived here, by choice and by the logic of cattle herding and then Soviet collectivization, for generations. The cold is the defining fact of existence. At -50°C — which is a mild winter day here — exposed skin freezes in minutes. Metal becomes brittle enough to shatter. Diesel gels. Cars must be kept running 24 hours a day or the engine oil will freeze solid and the vehicle will never start again.
The village has no indoor plumbing because the permafrost makes it impossible. All sewage is dealt with via outdoor facilities which, at -60°C, require a certain commitment that is difficult for people accustomed to temperate climates to imagine. There is one school, which stays open until -52°C. Below that, children stay home.
What Oymyakon offers that is harder to put into words: the air at -50°C is completely still and dry, and breathing it is like breathing something elemental and ancient, and the stars, when they come out in the long polar night, are the most vivid stars visible from Earth''s surface. There are no bugs. There is almost no wind. The cold is brutal but it is honest.