What does it look like in the coldest city in the world?
Thanks to one New Zealand photographer named Amos Chapple, we won’t just have to wonder.
Oymyakon, Russia is the coldest place on earth where humans actually live.
The small, rural town has brutal winters where temperatures can dip to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
The area is six time zones away from Moscow.
That makes it an expensive place to live in and visit.
When Chapple arrived in Oymyakon, he was struck by the emptiness of the place.
The population stands at about 500 permanent residents.
As he toldSmithsonian, The streets were just empty.
It felt extremely desolate.
It wasn’t, but everything was happening indoors, and I wasn’t welcome indoors.
We got in touch with the photographer to ask him a few questions about his experience.
What was it like shooting and walking through Oymyakon and Yakutsk?
What did you learn about the culture there?
I was surprised at how much energy that kind of cold saps from you.
After a few hours of walking outside I was physically wrecked.
In Russia, saying your family is from Siberia hints at a wealthy background.
How did the people treat you?
Oymyakon wasn’t really a hospitable place.
What did you get out of the trip?
Just a realization that there is an enormous amount of adventure still to be had out there!
What do you hope others get out of your photos?
I was just aiming to get something positive into the mainstream press, that continues to be the mission.
The world ain’t a bad place.
In the background a statue of Lenin presides over the central square of the city.
A Yakutian woman in the city center.
A frost-encrusted house in the center of Yakutsk.
A local woman enters Preobrazhensky Cathedral in a swirl of freezing mist.
Summer shoes waiting out the winter in a shed in the suburbs of Yakutsk.
A toilet on the tundra at a gasoline stop on the road to Oymyakon.
A sharp spire of frozen excrement rose almost to ground level from the pit beneath.
A frozen bus stop in Yakutsk.
Ice-crusted statues in a park commemorating the fallen of World War II in Yakutsk.
Cafe Cuba, a teahouse serving reindeer soup and hot tea in the wasteland between Yakutsk and Oymyakon.
Amos Chapple:Websiteh/t: [Smithsonian]
