Stumbled upon an amazing blog. Her owner is Susan Hicks, an American researcher. She is conducting research for her PhD dissertation in cultural anthropology in Oymyakon, the Pole of Cold, where she has been living since January, 2008.
In her last post Susan wrote:
“Hello to all! Just to give you short update on what’s going on…I’m back in Yakutsk, the capital city of the Sakha Republic, where I was in the spring. It’s pretty funny coming back to the city after spending so much time in the countryside–you begin to see things in a different way. If before, I thought of Yakutsk as a small Soviet city, now I see it as a big Sakha metropolis. It is the center of this region and carries itself like a center–people come from all over the republic and are awed by the glamour of the big city. It is a young person’s paradise–movie theaters, restaurants, cafes, discotecs, shopping centers, parks. The city is a strange mix of old old wooden houses, Soviet block apartment buildings, and flashy “postmodern” architecture–or at least the Siberian interpretation of postmodern. This includes bright purple facades, orange arches and pseudo-Arabian minuets. In the center of the city, stands the “old town”: a reconstructed version of what Yakutsk was supposedly like 100 years ago. The “authenticity” of this reconstruction, however, is hotly debated, such that people jokingly call it the new old town. The streets are paved with stone and lined with lamps. There are newly refurbished and rebuilt wooden buildings, all finished to a shine. The names of the restaurants and shops that now fill the buildings are advertised in giant red letters. It’s pleasant to walk around the two blocks that it occupies but gives you the feeling of being outside time somehow.”
“I’m living in the dormitory here, as I was in the spring, on the floor with all the international students and teachers. This time I got put on the side with the teachers, fortunately, as the student side is a bit raucous, filled with 16 Koreans, 3 Austrians, a Finn and a Swede. They are all here studying Russian (an interesting choice of place to study Russian, you might be thinking, and you would be right–but it is an adventure and they are enjoying themselves if the sound from their side of the hall is any indication). On my side of the hall are 4 teachers: Belgian, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. They are all really nice, speak great Russian and we often cook together (or they teach me how to cook).”
Her other great impression was Northern Lights:
“The one good thing about having to leave your house to use the restroom here is that it forces you to go outside occasionally. It’s already well below freezing here, so we’re not hanging out in the yard late into the evening anymore. But, thanks to the lack of indoor plumbing in Nyurba, I finally got to see the northern lights yesterday night. And it was spectacular. My friends were unimpressed…apparently a comparatively weak show. But, for a person who has never seen them before, it was breathtaking. A line of dancing green clouds lit up half the midnight sky, flickering like neon flames out of the heavens. They flickered and, very slowly drifted, fading in and out. Now stronger, now weaker, but bright bright green. I watched for around 10 minutes, before I was dragged inside to keep from freezing. When I went out again an hour later, the sky had turned black again.”
When writing about her first experience in a Sakha village, she noted:
“We arrived in the village earlier than expected, around 5:30, dropped off the passengers at their various destinations and proceeded on to Stepan Konstantinovich’s younger sister’s house. Since we showed up so early, the family had not yet come home from work, but anyway, Stepan Konstantinovich walked right in without knocking and began to make tea, etc. This is something that continually surprises me here and which I’m only starting to get used to–for close friends and family (even distant relatives) homes are always open.”
Read more stories at Adventures in the Pole of Cold .
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