- 7/2/2025
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00A frozen wolf. If you don't move, you freeze.
00:07Imagine a village where temperatures drop as low as minus 71.2 degrees Celsius.
00:13Here, spending just a few extra minutes outside can lead to frostbite, the loss of a limb, or even end of life.
00:20Is it frostbite?
00:21After staying outside for just over 15 minutes, my nose turned white, ice crystals began forming inside the cells,
00:28and the tissue started to die.
00:30If I had stayed out five minutes longer, my nose would have suffered permanent tissue damage.
00:35When people breathed outdoors, it would sound like dry grass rustling behind them.
00:41That was the sound of warm breath turning into tiny ice crystals.
00:47I'm in the coldest inhabited place on earth, at the coldest time of the year.
00:51This is Omyikin.
00:52Just to stay alive, I'm wearing more than 20 layers of clothing, weighing nearly 14 kilos.
00:57Stepping outside from a warm 30 degrees Celsius home means facing a temperature drop of over 100 degrees.
01:04That's why I'm also wearing gloves, boots, pants, and a coat, all made from reindeer fur.
01:09And even that's not enough.
01:10And now, I'm about to show you what life is like when simply going outside becomes a battle for survival.
01:16Within seconds outside, ice crystals start forming on the eyelashes, and the skin starts to sting.
01:22The village feels like it's been abandoned.
01:25The cold burned my finger.
01:27The cold doesn't just affect people and wild animals.
01:31It stops everything from functioning.
01:33Phones don't work properly, and often shut down.
01:36Cars left outside freeze in just a few hours.
01:38Since the ground is always frozen, no fruits or vegetables can grow here.
01:42We boarded a plane in Moscow, flying east for 7 hours to Yakutsk.
01:47From there, we covered an 18 hour, 900 kilometer road trip.
01:51It's 2 AM, and we finally arrived at the coldest village in the world.
01:55The thermometer reads minus 60.5 degrees Celsius.
01:59When we stepped out of the car, it felt like we were on another planet.
02:02The hairs in our nose were frozen, and we felt them prick with every breath.
02:12The dry air makes us cough uncontrollably.
02:16Ormukun is home to around 800 people, spread across 1.5 square kilometers.
02:22Seeing anyone else outside is almost impossible, as if time itself has frozen in this place.
02:28It's really cold. We are walking for about 15 minutes.
02:31As you see, my friend's eyelashes are full of ice.
02:35You can see another ice droplet on his upper lip.
02:40Oymyakon, our land surrounded by mountains.
02:43It gets brutally cold here.
02:45The temperature drops to minus 63 degrees Celsius, or even minus 64 degrees Celsius.
02:50Because Oymyakon is located in a basin, there's hardly any wind.
02:54The cold just settles in and stays.
02:56In this region, the ground stays frozen all year round.
02:59This layer of frozen earth is called permafrost, and it can reach hundreds of meters deep.
03:04To survive the cold, the villagers built a central heating system.
03:07A single coal-powered boiler sends heat to most homes through pipes.
03:11The system must run nonstop.
03:13Even a short failure puts everyone at risk.
03:15The interiors of the houses differ from traditional village homes.
03:19Heating pipes connected to the central boiler run through the rooms to keep the houses warm.
03:23To build on the frozen ground, thick wooden beams are first laid down to create a flat base.
03:28Then, the main logs go on top.
03:30A 30 centimeter thick subfloor is added, followed by insulation.
03:33And finally, the finishing floor.
03:35Each wall is made of seven layered materials.
03:38There's wood on the outside, then basalt wool as the main insulation barrier.
03:42Then plaster, mesh, foam insulation, another layer of plaster, and finally, a wooden panel inside.
03:48The windows are triple glazed, forming a vital barrier against the bone-chilling temperatures.
03:53And the attic is insulated with sawdust and soil.
03:55Combined with a stove or heating system, this setup keeps the residents warm.
03:59In nearly every building, the entrance room is intentionally left unheated.
04:03We freeze everything in the front room.
04:06Look at this refrigerator, natural.
04:08Here, I have frozen milk and frozen meat that I store in the cold.
04:13As you can see, these first two rooms at the entrance used for storage and as a refrigerator.
04:20These unheated rooms also serve as a buffer against the freezing cold.
04:23You can see ice and snow covering the interior of the room, especially the ceiling.
04:30In Oymyakun, the day begins early.
04:32Yevdokia is already at the barn.
04:34Cattle farmers here wrap a cloth around the cow's udder to protect the sensitive tissue
04:38from frostbite and to keep it clean.
04:41The udder isn't at risk of freezing anymore.
04:45But once the milk starts flowing, we have to be careful.
04:48Because of the extreme cold in Oymyakun, no water pipes run to the buildings.
04:52They would freeze almost instantly.
04:54The cows must step out into the cold every morning and make their way to the river to drink.
04:59One by one, they step into an icy hell, moving quickly knowing they must return before the cold becomes too harsh.
05:06Their hair became crusted with ice almost immediately.
05:09This part of the river is not frozen because it is coming fresh from the mountain.
05:14Underground spring water meets the river and keeps this part of the river unfrozen.
05:19Then all of a sudden, my whole face went numb.
05:21I couldn't move the muscle on the left side like I was having facial paralysis.
05:26When my nose started freezing, Yevdokia noticed right away.
05:32Is it frostbite?
05:36Is it frostbite?
05:37Yeah!
05:38The cold shrinks the blood vessels and eventually reduces blood circulation.
05:42Without enough warmth, water inside each cell freezes into ice crystals, causing the cells to rupture and triggering a stabbing pain and tissue to die.
05:51You should cover your face like this.
05:54Why?
05:55While covering your face.
05:58Be careful, or it might turn black.
06:01From this point on, until the end of the documentary shoot, I won't be able to stay outside for more than 10 minutes at a time.
06:07Or my already frostbitten nose could get even worse.
06:10But as the documentary progresses and the temperatures drop even further, we'll be pushing our limits to show you what survival here truly demands.
06:18Here's the cure.
06:20This is aloe and just alcohol.
06:23You soak it like this and apply it to the area that's frozen.
06:27And don't rub it, okay?
06:29Otherwise you'll damage the vessels and the capillaries and it'll lead to sores.
06:35Then Yevdokia began her daily chores by hanging freshly washed clothes in the yard.
06:39Within just minutes, they completely froze solid.
06:43Her clothes are completely frozen.
06:46My hands are freezing.
06:53After that, she headed into the barn to milk the cows.
06:58I keep Yakut cows because they produce really high quality milk.
07:02The fat content can reach 7-8%.
07:06As you can see, there are some ice and snow covering the ceiling.
07:11But here is warm.
07:13The sides are also covered in snow.
07:15You can see some droplets from the ceiling.
07:19And it's because of the humidity.
07:21The air is thick with the smell of hay, warm milk and livestock.
07:26Now we are going to meet a horse master.
07:29We're about to see the wild Yakutian horses in their natural habitat.
07:34Mikael, here are the Yakut horses.
07:38The conditions here are so harsh that only they have been able to adapt.
07:42What is the temperature today?
07:43It's somewhere around minus 50 degrees Celsius here.
07:46It's also hard to be outside for a long time.
07:48We have a system of fences in the open area.
07:52They mostly graze freely.
07:54These Yakutian horses don't need heated shelters as they can endure minus 70 degrees Celsius outdoors day and night.
08:02Unlike regular horses, they are short.
08:04This also helps them to stay outside during winters because short body means it can radiate heat to a smaller area.
08:12Their body looks very puffy, very rich in fat and round.
08:16This is because of their thick fur.
08:18And also their horseshoes are very tall.
08:21Allowing them to stand on this freezing ground very long time.
08:24They are not captured.
08:26They are just being fed here.
08:28A body means food.
08:29This is horse meat.
08:30They eat it here.
08:31As you can see, it got a lot of fat.
08:34This is one packet.
08:35A packet of a horse meat.
08:37This was ordered.
08:39And it's going to be sold to a customer.
08:41This large pile of hay has been stored since summer.
08:44It's the main food supply for the horses during winter.
08:50Mikhail offered us a taste of his horse's meat and liver,
08:53which is only eaten raw and frozen in this region.
08:56Raw horse meat.
08:57It's full of vitamins and good stuff.
08:59Since we don't have fruit or vegetables here, we get our vitamins from meat.
09:09I like ice.
09:10I can't feel the taste of it because it is frozen.
09:12This is the liver.
09:15In Oymyakun, daylight lasts only about four and a half hours in January.
09:19It's 3 p.m. now.
09:21As darkness falls, we're calling it a day.
09:27Before cars, animals like horses, cattle, and of course reindeer were used for transportation.
09:33Reindeers are very important in this region.
09:35Not just for transportation, but also for its meat, skin, and also milk.
09:40About half a kilometer beyond the village center, frozen forest of Oymyakun begin.
09:45In this village, most people herd animals for a living.
09:48But for those like Ivan, hunting becomes the main source of income.
09:52I am a man of the forest.
09:54These lands are my hunting grounds.
09:56And here is my tent.
09:58My home.
10:03He's making fire now.
10:05We need this fire because it is too hot here.
10:08We must walk on the path.
10:17The ice underneath is thin.
10:19We made our way to the frozen river to check the fishing net he had set the day before.
10:23Ivan warned our cameraman just in time.
10:25He was about to step onto a cracked patch of ice.
10:28One wrong step could cause him to fall into the water and get wet.
10:33In the winter, when it was just as cold, my dad was out riding his horse in the woods.
10:39He fell through the ice and started freezing right away.
10:42Realizing that there was no warm shelter nearby and no chance of rescue,
10:47he made the decision to shoot himself to avoid a slow, painful death.
10:52Oh, somewhere special in the lens.
10:56It's already frozen.
10:58Our deer was already struggling to work in this temperature.
11:01And now, this frozen lens is useless and we'll have to give up on it.
11:05To get the net, he's removing the ice from the hole using a small shovel.
11:13The fish remained alive for only a few seconds after touching the freezing air.
11:17The water was warm, but now on the surface, this fish is shocked.
11:21It's completely frozen.
11:23To make it easier to cut, he's warming the frozen fish by rubbing it with his hands.
11:30He's carefully slicing it into thin pieces.
11:33Frozen and raw wild fish.
11:36When it's frozen, you feel like you're just eating an ice.
11:40You should eat with salt.
11:43Fish are loaded with vitamins in the winter.
11:46Inside the tent, it's warm, but as you see, the outer part is completely frozen.
11:53He's feeding the fire and sharing some of the fish to nature.
11:58Oh, spirit of nature, accept our gift.
12:00Bless us with a successful hunt and grace us with the abundance of your land.
12:04According to his shamanic belief, he must keep the spirit of the hunt satisfied.
12:08Or next time, he might come up empty.
12:10We're heading into the wilderness.
12:12Yvonne wants to hunt something big.
12:15Looks like something's been through here.
12:17There are footprints and little patches of urine left behind.
12:20Look, it grow deer tracks.
12:24They're getting close.
12:26Because I stayed out in the cold for more than 10 minutes, I've started to feel numbness in my nose again.
12:33I have to be more careful.
12:34I don't feel my... monsters.
12:38Okay.
12:43From that side, it ran towards the forest.
12:46That's where I'll set the trap.
12:48He hopes to catch a large animal.
12:54The hunter knows the animal follows the same path every day.
12:58So he's placing the trap along his daily route.
13:04He's covering the trap with snow.
13:07He's using a dog's tail to remove the traces smoothly.
13:11We'll return to this spot later to see what he catches.
13:14But first, Yvonne wants to check the trap he set yesterday.
13:17He scans the snowy landscape carefully.
13:20Everything here is like a book to me.
13:23When the snow falls, I track how many animals there are by their footprints.
13:28I already know how many animals live in this area.
13:32The Sakha are a Turkic people who migrated from Central Asia.
13:36And I'm from Turkiye, a country whose roots also trace back to the same region.
13:40Before we continue with the documentary, I'd like to thank the sponsor of this project
13:44and explore how closely I'm connected to these people.
13:47I received this at-home DNA testing kit from this project's sponsor, MyHeritage,
13:51to discover my real ethnicity.
13:53It's super easy to use.
13:55The kit comes with a swab.
13:57All I have to do is rub it inside my cheek for about a minute.
14:00Then I'm placing it in a while, snapping it at the black line.
14:04I'm packing everything up and setting it to return address.
14:08In about 4 weeks, my results will be ready online and I can't wait to learn my roots.
14:13Finally, the day has come.
14:14I got an email from MyHeritage.
14:16Let's see what my DNA says.
14:18To be perfectly honest with you, I have no idea what to expect.
14:2147.3% Greek and Albanian.
14:25It's almost half.
14:26I always knew that my grandma was from Albania and now I have no doubt.
14:30Then there is 40.5% Turkish and 4.7% South Italy.
14:36My roots stretch all the way to Central Asia.
14:39It is 3.4%.
14:40This is where Turkic people originally come from.
14:43Then there are more slices of other ethnicities.
14:46MyHeritage can even pinpoint the exact locations my Turkish ancestors came from.
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15:46Let's get back to the video now.
15:47There it is, lying on the snow, a solid catch.
15:52You got a hair, a very big one, quite enough for all of us to eat.
15:58It wasn't the trap that killed it, the freezing cold did as he lay there, stuck and helpless.
16:03So, the nature has no joke here.
16:06This trap is smaller than the one we set today.
16:09I'm curious to see what the next catch will be.
16:11But for now, there will be meat on the fire tonight.
16:14In Oymyakon, there are a lot of hares.
16:18During the war, it was actually because of hunting hares that our people survived.
16:23Tamara cooked the hare and prepared a dinner table at her house.
16:26It doesn't have any fat, it's a very lean meat.
16:32Some of the upcoming scenes were among the hardest to capture.
16:35Thanks to the help of the Ulingovs, the leading YouTube channel on rural Russia, we were able to make it happen.
16:41At the first light of morning, we come across something unexpected near the house, a giant snake sculpture.
16:46It's entirely made of cow waste.
16:48Weighing more than 360 kilograms, it was built by a local farmer.
16:52The region's sub-zero climate also makes plumbing systems inoperable.
16:56If water pipes were installed, the water inside would freeze almost instantly.
17:00Instead, residents meet their needs, such as washing their hands from water they had previously stored in tanks.
17:06Our sink is old. There's a bucket underneath to cast the water.
17:11When it builds up, we just take it outside and dump it.
17:14Once again, the absence of plumbing infrastructure means that houses have no indoor showers or toilets.
17:19Instead, these essential facilities are built in the gardens inside unheated cabins.
17:24The lack of a sewage system means that human waste remains where it is accumulated.
17:28Since waste freezes instantly upon exposure to the air, it often accumulates into frozen columns,
17:33sometimes reaching up to one or two meters in height before eventually being broken down.
17:37When someone has to use the bathroom, they need to put on a lot of clothes, and they must be fast to not get frozen.
17:43Using these toilets is never a pleasant experience, but this one is different.
17:46It's heated, but the problem with it, it cannot be ventilated as the cold disrupts the heating system.
17:51This type of toilet is still preferred to be protected from the cold, despite the unpleasant odor that accumulates inside.
18:01To bathe, cook, wash dishes, or simply drink, clean water is essential.
18:07But getting it is a whole other process that takes a lot of effort.
18:11People here collect blocks of river ice and melt them to get fresh water for daily use.
18:16Right now you're looking at a vast white blanket of snow, but under there's a frozen river, the only source of water.
18:22He's using a chisel to cut into the thick ice.
18:25You have to work quickly if it's cold, otherwise you'll freeze.
18:31As we carve out solid blocks one after another, we lift them and place them onto the sled.
18:36We've loaded as many ice blocks as a sled can carry.
18:52Our ancestors used to transport ice with oxen.
18:58Nikolai, how long these are going to last?
19:01I have a big family.
19:03It'll last us too, maybe three weeks.
19:10These huge blocks are kept either in the cold room inside the house or just outside in the backyard.
19:15They put them in a barrel and let them melt and then they drink it.
19:21The ice blocks we collected together will not only be used in his own home,
19:25but also shared with neighbors so they can use the clean water to bathe.
19:30In this village, a bathing routine doesn't start with turning on a tap, but with chopping wood.
19:41The boy is grabbing a large chunk of ice given by Nikolai, and he's bringing it inside.
19:48Our grandparents take baths for two hours.
19:52We usually stay for about an hour and a half.
19:56How long does it take for you to complete your bath?
19:59The whole process takes around four or five hours.
20:03We bathe once a week on Saturday or Sunday.
20:07The next step is to turn frozen shampoo into liquid near the stove.
20:10They're rinsing themselves using a ladle.
20:15When they finish, they're dressing quickly as they'll step outside from 60 degrees Celsius to minus 54 degrees Celsius.
20:23A difference of 114 degrees Celsius.
20:26After their weekly bath ritual ends, the next morning begins early.
20:30It's 7.30 a.m. and children are waking up to a freezing cold morning, still pitch black outside.
20:35Thanks to this simple indoor tank, the kids can wash their faces and brush their teeth in the warmth of the house.
20:44But for other needs, the kids still have to use the outdoor toilet.
20:48Jana helps her daughters get dressed for school.
20:51The children wear many layers of clothing for their commute.
20:53Before they leave, Jana wraps a wool shawl tightly around their faces, covering their mouths and noses to protect them from the biting cold.
21:04Now, they're ready to go outside.
21:07The walk to school is about half a kilometer.
21:10Every winter morning, Nikolai walks his daughters.
21:13The school remains open in Oymyukun unless temperatures drop below bone-chilling minus 55 degrees Celsius.
21:18Below that point, it's too dangerous to go outside.
21:20Today, the thermometer reads minus 51 degrees Celsius.
21:25As the kids arrive at school, daily life for people like Yvonne is focused on survival and hunting.
21:31Yvonne has got a lot of animals through here.
21:35He even has a frozen wolf.
21:38He caught this wolf before dawn, about two hours ago, in the trap we set together.
21:42He died because of the cold when it couldn't move. If you don't move in the cold, you die.
21:51This is a male one. Yvonne will sell the skin of the wolf and take the meat of it and make another trap, put the meat in the trap and he will hunt a bear.
22:01He's showing us his hunting collection. These are the pellets of the foxes he tracked throughout the winter.
22:05This one is a fully grown bear.
22:09These bears were killed because they kept attacking my livestock.
22:13Every year they come onto my land and each time there are more of them.
22:18The cold in Oymyukun is so extreme, even the most durable vehicles would fail without proper preparation.
22:24If a vehicle is left outside for even a few hours without the engine running, it completely freezes and won't start again without a full defrosting process.
22:33How are you planning to un-freeze your car?
22:36We'll use a jet heater. We're not sure if it'll start.
22:40Every part is frozen solid. Metal, fuel, oil, even the battery. They start by brushing off the heavy snow that's built up on the car.
22:47The tire has turned solid like a rock. It was minus 56 degrees Celsius outside.
22:55The tire has gone flat, not because of a leak, but because cold temperatures cause the air molecules inside to shrink.
23:01They are going to install this to heat the vehicle.
23:06We try to close it tightly so that the warm air does not escape out, but stays inside.
23:12And then take this one. It's too cold outside.
23:27Because of this, everything needs to be kept warm.
23:30Since the car is diesel, the diesel fuel in the tank completely froze.
23:35The car will stay like this for about three to four hours.
23:38If a local is lucky enough to have a heated garage, they can store their vehicle there for months without risking the engine.
23:45As the car was being defrosted, we made our first stop at one of these garages.
23:50The door is very well insulated. There is no open spot in this garage.
23:54They use this material. You can see the walls, layer upon layer, and there are pipes here to heat the garage.
24:01To heat the garage.
24:03We heated the car for three hours.
24:05Now, we're going to try starting this.
24:08The accumulator is installed.
24:10And the oil level is checked using the dipstick.
24:17First time to open the door.
24:22Great!
24:24This vehicle is brought back from that.
24:27Now, we'll try to leave the place.
24:30In Oymyakam, survival isn't about conquering nature, but about living in harmony with it.
24:36Guided by ancient shamanic wisdom, the Yakut people don't fight the cold.
24:40They respect it and endure within its rules.
24:43Look, the temperature does not rise at all.
24:45Here, even the cruelest winters are met not with fear, but with ritual.
24:49And the unshakable belief that nature gives as much as it takes.
24:53This isn't just survival, it's coexistence.
24:56Huge thanks to my dear friend, Hurgut Ikiam, who was with me every step of the way during this journey.
25:02He also filmed the video in Oymyakam, where he accepted an extraordinary invitation from a local family,
25:07and captured daily life in this freezing village.
25:09Also, while filming with Turgut, we jumped into a frozen river at minus 55 degrees Celsius.
25:15One of the most extreme experiences of my life.
25:18If you want to catch this unseen footage of the journey, and get a much closer look at the region's culture and traditions, click here to watch his documentary.
25:26Last but not least, click the link in the description or scan the QR code and don't forget to use my code RUHI29 to get your MyHeritage DNA kit for just $29, euros or pounds.
25:36Don't miss this 67% discount to discover your heritage.
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