A presentation picture of the Museum of Gulags located in Khandyga, Siberia/Russia

Last two days I spent at 2011 Sakha Travel Exhibition in Yakutsk. It is an annual event held during the first weekend of April. I attend the exhibit just to find new travel enthusiasts from various regions of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).

This time I was lucky to meet Mr. Ivan Igoshin from the settlement of Khandyga. He knows almost everything about history of GULAGs in Siberia, as he is the founder of Yakutia Gulags Museum. Right, it is located in Khandyga, where he lives. You can see him in the picture with a tower. Besides, he is a leader of Khandyga Travel Club.

I wanted to meet him for many years. At last, I acquanted with him today. I was really lucky and, yeah, you might be happy about it as well. At least, I hope so :) We decided to cooperate! Woo hoo!

Museum Address: 30 Karpov Street, Khandyga, Yakutia/Russia, tel. +7 (41153) 413-95.

Proud to announce the opening of the photo exhibition “On the Road of Bones: Ghosts of the Siberian Gulag Along the Old Kolyma Highway” at Kris Waldherr Art and Words studio gallery in Brooklyn, New York, today.

About exhibition
Through photography and mixed media, “On the Road of Bones” reveals the secret history and hidden landscape of Kolyma, formerly the land of Soviet labor camps and the coldest inhabited region on earth. Stunning new works by young native Siberian photographers Bolot Bochkarev, Nastya Borisova, and Ajar Varlamov trace the remains of the vast highway built across the taiga, tundra, and permafrost of North Asia by Stalin’s prisoners. The exhibition juxtaposes the tragic events of the past with the powerful natural beauty of the frozen land and the daily lives of northern people.

Frankly saying, I and my friends didn’t plan to have any event. This year we had just wonderful journey to Oymyakon (about the travel), but New York-based exhibition curator Thomas Ross Miller said we needed to do some. We’ll here we are.

More info and opening day photographs at eYakutia.com .

Vaselisa Popova, my new contact in Verkhoyansk, Yakutis, Siberia.

Good news to all travelers, who are interested in Sangar (the Kobyajsky region) and Verkhoyansk. I visited the 2010 Sakha Travel Exhibition held at Polar Hotel in Yakutsk on April 9-10, 2010. Finally, I acquainted with travel enthusiasts from those places. You can see them in the photographs.

The Kobyajsky region is famous for its fantastic fishing and rafting near Segyan Kyol as well as its Even nomads‘ settlement of Sebjan Kyol in the Verkhoyansky Range.

Verkhoyansk is known as the 2nd (maybe, the 1st) Pole of Cold in Yakutia. It’s located near the Arctic Circle, where travelers can see Aurora Borealis and experience the most extreme cold weather in Siberia’s Yakutia. Believe, it is much colder there than in Oymyakon. Besides, Verkhoyansk is the most challenging destination for auto/moto adventurers.

Vaselisa Popova in the national costume

Another news contact... in Sangar, Kobyaisky region, Yakutia, Siberia.

2010 Sakha Travel Exhibition in Yakutsk.

2010 Sakha Travel Exhibition in Yakutsk.

2010 Sakha Travel Exhibition in Yakutsk.

Now I know, whom to redirect questions regarding the Siberian remote villages of Sangar and Verkhoyansk :)

The Copenhagen Summit made climate changes topical in news. Interesting, but Yakutsk and I felt this fever as well. A couple weeks ago five western journalists arrived in Yakutsk to make reportages about the affects of global warming in Yakutsk. In the summer I helped two photographers Mathias Braschler & Monika Fischer, who searched persons with tumbledown houses for portraits to show in Copenhagen, and Jonathan Watts, a Beijin-based The Guardian correspondent.

Recently I have received similar requests from western journalists. The last one was from the Swedish Aftonbladet newspaper reporter. He asked the following questions and got my replies.

- I know this question seems awkward, but do you see any consequences of global warming in Yakutsk?

- As Jonathan Watts concluded, it depends on whom you ask about climate changes. Right. If you ask the Yakutsk Permafrost Institute experts, they will say that they didn’t record any evidence of the happening changes in local permafrost. If you ask local biologists, they will give a positive answer like “Yes, we noted, for instance, the migration of species and insects from south.”

- Someone said that houses in Yakutsk is actually sinking; some have sunk to their windows. Is that correct?

- There are a few wooden houses sunk as you described. But you will be disappointed. The reason of such building state is not global warming. It is because they were built directly on ground, not on concrete piles. Buildings give warmth, and frozen ground under starts being melted. If they are built on concrete piles and freezing systems are used, they stand okey. Right, till 60s local constructors didn’t use pile, because such technology wasn’t invented at that time.

Btw, this summer a few photographers and a Guardian reporter visited Yakutsk and asked the same questions to a deputy chief of the Permafrost Institute. They’ve heard such an answer and that wasn’t what they wanted to hear. However, they took photos of those sunk houses and presumed what could happen to buildings, if the global warming will gain ground here.

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In the beginning of November 2009, I wrote the post “Descending into the world’s deepest shaft in the permafrost zone.” In a few days after I received a message with a lot of questions from a Hungarian scientists Adam Soereg.

He wrote “Data from Yakutsk is extremely important, because this is the longest dataset in the Eastern Siberian region, longer than any series in the United States. Yakutsk shows an abnormally high rate of warming since the early 19th century, but what if the official values used by large agencies between 1829 and 1854 are 1.9°c lower than reality?”

Here is the whole text of his message:

I’ve recently read your post about the world’s deepest vertical shaft in permafrost. When I discovered that it was built by Fyodor Shergin, a merchant employed by a joint Russian-American company, I had a thought that I’ve seen this name somewhere. Later I found at home the copies of some old documents published by the Central Physical Observatory of Russia, which contained very old temperature measurements from Yakutsk.

I interested in climate research and especially in surface temperature records and calculating global temperature.

Data from Yakutsk is extremely important, because this is the longest dataset in the Eastern Siberian region, longer than any series in the United States.

Yakutsk shows an abnormally high rate of warming since the early 19th century, but what if the official values used by large agencies between 1829 and 1854 are 1.9°c lower than reality?

I possess all data since the first observations began in Yakutsk in 1829, and it is absolutely sure that the official values were calculated each year from Neverov’s data. I have three different sets: the official record used by lots of institutions, and the original measurements taken by Aleksandr Neverov and Fyodor Shergin. To easily understand my problem, I am going to show you an example:

Monthly averages in Yakutsk from various sources and difference between measurements taken by Alexsandr Neverov and Fyodor Shergin (°c):

Month/yr Official Neverov Shergin Diff.

Aug 1837 13.1 11.9 14.1 2.2
Sep 1837 4.3 3.5 5.0 1.5
Oct 1837 -10.9 -10.8 -10.6 0.2
Nov 1837 -33.5 -31.9 -31.1 0.8
Dec 1837 -36.9 -34.9 -32.8 2.1
Jan 1838 -49.1 -46.5 -44.1 2.4
Feb 1838 -38.8 -36.9 -34.9 2.0
Mar 1838 -26.1 -24.9 -23.1 1.8
Apr 1838 -7.4 -7.4 -6.1 1.3
May 1838 2.7 2.3 3.4 1.1
Jun 1838 15.8 14.4 16.3 1.9
Jul 1838 21.8 19.9 21.3 1.4

Annual -12.1 -11.8 -10.2

As you can see, there are extremely high differences in case of the 3 temperature series. The official values are the lowest, with the largest negative bias in January. Shergin observed a monthly mean of -44.1 degC, Neverov’s data shows a lower mean (-46.5°c) and the official ones decreased Neverov’s values by 2.6°c in every January between 1829 and 1854. But how the hell they “homogenized” his measurements when Yakutsk was the only observing site in entire Yakutia and Eastern Siberia?? If you adjust the early data downwards, you will get an artificial warming trend (to be honest, this is exactly what some global warming scientists would like to achieve).

I would like to ask for information in case of three different problems:

1. I think that Mr. Shergin measured the air temperature in his own property, next to his famous permafrost shaft described in your post. Is there any chance to give its exact location in Google Maps and find some information how the temperature readings were taken?

2. I do not know at the moment which series are correct, but the official ones are suspiciously low. However, there could be an another source of information to estimate the real temperatures in the 19th century. Mr. Shergin recorded the exact time of freeze-up and brake-up on Lena river. In 1837/38 winter season, it was 27 October 1837 and 25-27 April 1838, respectively. If somebody in Yakutsk have a diary with dates we can compare it with the modern temperature measurements (and check the accuracy of the 3 series).

3. Where is the contemporary location of the local weather station in your city?

I would highly appreciate your help in this topic.

Adam Soereg
Budapest, Hungary

I forwarded the message to Valentin Spektor, expert of Yakutsk Permafrost Institute. He replied and supplied a pretty good amount of info:

1) At present i have one scientific source for that time. This is the book by Karl M.Baer. Materials for study of unmelted soil frost in Siberia. Yakutsk: Permafrost Institute SB RAS Press, 2000. -160 p. It is published in Russian for the first time. The original in German was kept as a manuscript in the arkhives of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The materials were obtained by 1842 for A.F. Middendorf.
2) According to the application 19 by Dr. Adolf Erman, Erman had measured air temperatures in Yakutsk in 1828 by spirit thermometer in Reaumur degrees (1 °R = 0,8 °С)
Here is the Erman’s table i translated from this application:

Month
(old style) Air temperature in Yakutsk (degrees Reaumur)
8 am 2 pm month 8 am 2pm

January -31.0 -29.0 July +14.2 +20.7
Feb. -27.1 -22.3 Aug +8.4 +14.4
March -17.6 -7.5 Sept. -2.5 +3.0
Apr. -5.4 +2.3 Oct. -12.5 +9.1
May +5.3 +10.7 Nov. -25.4 -2.3
June +12.4 +12.4 Dec. -35.5 -33.8

Here is the reference:
Adolf Erman Bergchaus Annalen der Erdstaaten und Völkerkude.1882, Bd.V,S.541-54

See also: Erman’s Reise um die Erde. Erste Abteilung historischer Bericht, B.II (1838), S.250

3) Then, in the application 21, von Helmersen about the well in Yakutsk writes that Shergin made measurements of temperature in the well by a Reaumur thermometer, and sometimes measured temperature of the outside air

Bulletin scientifique de l’Academie de S.Petersbourg, vol III, p.193.

4) We can?t tell in which exact time of the day Shergin made his measurements and on which height above the surface.

5) We would be obliged if you send the old documents published by the Central Physical Observatory of Russia you mentioned.

Cheers,
Valentin Spektor.

In my turn I sent Adam coordinates on Google Maps:

The shaft is that small grey roof in the front of the G-like brown roof.

It must be a great honor for me. It’s not the first time when I am asked to post a press release. This time the 2009 Yakutsk Mammoth Tusks Auction organizing committee addressed me with the request to share the event announcement. Well… Here we go.

1. Official name and address of the Auction organizing party
Open Joint-Stock Company “SakhaEXPOMammoth”, building 24, Vilyuiskiy trakt, 4th km, Yakutsk, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Russian Federation

2. Subject of the Auction
The subject of the Auction is the right to conclude a purchase-sell contract on mammoth tusks and other mammoth fauna – both raw and partially processed – to juridical entities and natural persons.

3. Time and place of the Auction

Date: December 9, 2009
Place: Auditorium, 8th floor, block B, Business center, Kirova str. 18, Yakutsk, Russian Federation

4. General Provisions

● The Auction is held in pursuance of the Decree of the President of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) dated March 30, 2005 N2044 “Of a special status of natural resources – fossil remains of mammoth fauna – and regulation of its circulation on the territory of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)”, to attain realistic price-formation on mammoth tusks and other mammoth fauna, obtained on the territory of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).
● The Auction is held in an open form with public bidding.
● The organizing party of the Auction is Open Joint-Stock Company “SakhaEXPOMammoth” with the assistance of the State Committee of Geology and Use of Natural Resources of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) and the Ministry of External Relations of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).
● The sellers at the Auction are juridical entities and natural persons of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), having ownership rights of the subject of the Auction.
● The Bidders of the Auction are legal entities and natural persons, having submitted the application forms and other documents required by the present General Provisions in due terms and having paid the registration fee for participation in the Auction.
● Foreign juridical entities and natural persons are admitted to the Auction providing that they conform to the requirements set by the Russian Federation legislation.
● The winner of the Auction shall be the bidder bidding the highest price for a lot.

5. Additional information

The Auction participants – sellers may put in storage their selling mammoth tusks in advance to the Open Joint-Stock Company “SakhaEXPOMammoth”.

The Auction participants may obtain additional information, read the Condition and Terms of the Auction, and submit the application form to the address given below weekdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. local time.

Contact Info:
Address: Building 24, Vilyuiskiy trakt, 4th km, Yakutsk, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), 677008.
Tel/fax: +7-4112-368401

Deadline
The deadline for submitting the application forms is set as: December 4, 2009, 3 p.m. Yakutsk time (GMT + 09:00).

Download 2009YakutskMammothTusksAuction.zip (223Kb) with the auction documentation (application form, program, the Decree of Yakutia’s President, information on regulations, Auction Committee, Conciliatory Committee).

On Nov. 4, 2009, in Yakutsk, the capital of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), a group of three people descended into the world’s deepest ice vertical tunnel, Shergin’s Shaft, that had been buried and forgotten for more than half a century. It was the important historical, scientific, cultural event called “The Storm of Shergin’s Shaft” designed to get a few rare samples for permafrost researchers and show a new way to observe never-melting, frozen soil layers.

A cameraman Marina Kalinina, the Republic’s airborne rescue detachment chief Eugene Zolkin and a popular Russian TV producer, founder and presenter of TV Shows “Seekers” (Искатели) and “Seekers of Yakutia” Andrey E (Khoroshev) descended into the shaft with the depth of 116 and a half meters.

The event had been planned thoroughly and in details. Security was provided by the Republic’s airborne rescue team. On the day of the descent, outdoor temperature was minus 19 degrees Centigrade, but inside the shaft it was minus 4 degrees Centigrade only.

While descending, the participants were recording the action by a portative videocam. Spectators could watch and follow the operation live on a big monitor set on an ordinary passenger bus outside of the shaft. Going down through frozen ground layers, the trio commented their feelings and amazing views via radio-walkers.

The only lady in the team, Marina Kalinina, managed to reach 30 meters deep. However, the descent made a deep impression on her, she was charmed by ice-crystal soil. She said she felt as if she had been cleaned from negative information.

At a depth of 104 meters, Andrey E and Eugene Zolkin found out that the further way down was narrowed and blocked by ice and building wastes. Going further below appeared to be dangerous. Despite of that sudden stop, there were no doubts the event resulted in scientific success. At the shaft mouth, a rescue officer dug samples for permafrost researchers of the famous Yakutsk-based P. Melnikov’s Permafrost Institute and other scientific research institutions.

It is necessary to mention that Shergin’s Shaft was buried for more than half a century. There were several unsuccessful attempts of reconstructing the ice vertical tunnel. All of them were crashed into officials’ indifference.

Only this year enthusiasts, people of different occupations, get united and eventually overcame bureaucracy. All required papers, permissions, and signatures were received in the course of almost one year to begin the restoration work.

The shaft was finally drilled down and reconstructed, and the wooden shed around the drew-well acquired its personal signboard, and the first group of people used its long-awaited opportunity to descend the world’s deepest vertical tunnel in permafrost.

The shaft restoration was initiated, arranged and successfully completed with the help of the Yakutsk Affiliate of Baikal Economics & Law State University, P. Melnikov’s Permafrost Institute at the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Science, and the Airborne Rescue Detachment of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).

History of Shergin’s Shaft

In 1827, a descendant of Veliky Ustyug, employee of the Russian-American joint-trade company, merchant Fyodor Shergin started digging up a well in the yard of his house to obtain drinking water. Two years later, having dug a reservoir of 15 meters deep and not reached water-level, he stopped the work. In 1829 scientists persuaded him to continue digging for scientific purposes. Shergin began measuring temperature inside the shaft till 1837. As a result, the Russian merchant’s work became famous in Europe and America.

Shergin’s shaft has an important cultural, historical value. It is unique since it is the deepest shaft in the world dug in the permafrost zone. Measuring of temperature almost two centuries ago founded a new world science – geocriology (science about permafrost), without which the North development would have been impossible. As readers might know, Yakutsk is considered to be the cradle of this science.

Information acquired inside the ice vertical tunnel helped to determine that the depth of permafrost in Yakutsk is 210 meters. It was a real discovery. Before those scientific researches, many outside scientists were doubtful about the existence of the permafrost of such immense power. Yakutsk experimental results proved the fact of deep ground freezing.

Taking into consideration the experience of the shaft research, international scientists started measuring permafrost temperature in Canada and Alaska. European scientists, who used to deny the existence of such nature phenomenon as permafrost in forest zones, accepted it as a scientific fact.

Contact information

Andrey E.
Project Leader
www.bguep-yakutsk.ru (in Russian)
shaxta_shergina@mail.ru
+7-924-46-11-016

Yeah, what does the West know about Yakutia? This question a RIA Novosti correspondent asked Eric Hoesli, writer, journalist and Editorial Director of Edipresse, Switzerland, who arrived to Yakutsk with the purpose to participate in the meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club. His answer was interesting. Partly I agree, partly not. Check yourself.

RIA Novosti: Club members will travel to the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) this year. What does the West know about the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), and what do you expect to see and hear there?

Eric Hoesli: If we are talking about what the West knows about Yakutia, the answer is very simple: they know there are diamonds there.

Apart from this, the development of all of Siberia is of great interest, I think. This concerns not only natural resources. I think climate change, carbon dioxide emissions, and other environmental problems are of great importance. These are global problems that are affecting Siberia. I wonder what local leaders think of them.

There are other issues that interest me in Yakutia. They are related to the development of Siberia—for instance, the river infrastructure and the Northern Sea Route. The Lena River, which links Yakutsk with all of Russia, is navigable only for a few months of the year. The Northern Sea Route might now be restored due to ice melting, and the possibilities of this are being discussed widely. It would be interesting to hear local opinions on the problem. Questions raised back in the 1930s have now become relevant again because of global warming.

In short, Yakutia exemplifies the situation in entire Siberia, and this has an impact on our future.

The full text of the interview is here.

Three Valleys Innovation Technopark invites international companies to join the permanent online exhibition “New Technologies and Innovations for the Economy of Sakha Republic (Yakutia)”.

The aims of the Online Exposition are to attract domestic and foreign advanced technologies into the main sectors of our economy, to support entrepreneurial activity in Yakutia region and stimulate technological cooperation.

Online exposition is known as innovative and actively developing form of exhibition, characterized by high efficiency level and low expense costs.

In order to promote Online Expositions, Expo.Ykt.Ru is worked out. It is now a prestigious Yaknet platform, where leading enterprises of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) have already been introduced.

We invite foreign developers, producers, suppliers of new technologies, service companies to announce Your products, technologies and services in the Exposition sections:

• building industry
• transport
• energy efficiency, housing and communal services
• food
• agriculture

The exhibition is to be accompanied by an advertising campaign, including leading Sakha Republic (Yakutia) media, outdoor advertising and information network Ykt.Ru facilities.

We focus on a long-term cooperation, development of new industries in our republic and therefore offer the Online Exposition participants various forms of co-operation.

For more information:

visit the website New Technologies and Innovations for the Economy of Sakha Republic (Yakutia) (in Russian)
call the manager by skype user threevalleysusu
mail to: platonova@yaknet.com

Andrew I with a creative studio “A Novigator” announced a descent to the deepest well in the world, Shergin’s shaft, to take place in Yakutsk on October 20, 2009. Update, 21.10.2009: The even was postponed till November 04, 2009.

An exclusive speleological tour into the unique well, that is 116 meters deep, as long as a 40-store building,and surrounded with permafrost!

The hole of this well was dug in permafrost for more than 10 years. A construction was finished in 1829. Fyodor Shergin was a manager of a joint trade Russian-American company (a joint trade Russian-American company manager) and he leaded this construction. Not knowing about deepness of permafrost seam, Shergin argued that he would obtain water. But he couldn’t do it. Deepness of permafrost seam lies 225 meters down in this region.

The shaft has been used for scientific purposes by the Russian Academy since then. It served as a jolt to originate and to develop a new scientific direction.

Generally admitted Shergin’s shaft is considered to be a crandle of geocreology (or permafrost)!

Only several persons have been at the bottom of the well for the whole period of its existence. Risking very much, they were descended to the well by a hemp rope due to the windlass specially made.

The bottom of the well was descended last in 1934.

In 1942 the rope of the descending device was broken off under the mysterious circumstances.

In the eighties because of thawing water in the upper part of the well a glacial stopper had appeared which insulated the shaft from the outside world.

In 2007 a project of Shergin’s shaft restoration was elaborated by the initiative group of Andrew I with the creative studio and “The Novigator”.

During this period there was a large number of skeptics who made the most pessimistic predictions that the well was full of water, ice and fragments of broken rope.

In winter 2009 specialists from the SS RAS Institute of Permafrost carried out a test drilling the upper part of the well. This drilling confirmed “The Novigator” expectations that thickness of the icy stopper was more than 10 meters.

In June 2009 a specially prepared by “The Novigator” specialists video-finder was put down through the hole of 20 centimeters in diameter. A unique videomaterial about shaft videofixation till 110 meters depth was received.

The well was finally kept. There are several well-holes without any timberlings except some parts of the shaft strengthened with larch ones. The upper part of isolated stopper ends with icy stalactites. There is one more stopper from icy formations with thickness of 2 meters to a depth of 20 meters. This stopper is not full of ice, but it has got a hole in it.

The lower part of the shaft has a deep effect of ice crystals with amazing beauty which cover the walls (covering the walls). The larch timberlings look like as if they had been installed yesterday, not more than 160 years ago.

As a result of this work a documentary film “A descent” will be on in the very near future.

Nobody has been at the bottom of the well for more than 70 years.

The intrigue of the forthcoming descent to the bottom of the well is connected with mysteries and legends:
• According to the first legend Fyodor Shergin hid some value at the bottom of the well including a ring with a diamond which he was awarded by the emperor Nickolai I.
• In the days of the Soviet Union this shaft was equipped for carrying out secret tests.
• In the depth of the well (everywhere in permafrost) there are unexplicable anomalous phenomena.

Except this there is an objective difference in forthcoming descent organization.

If there is the lack of minus temperatures on the outside, air ventilation doesn’t occur inside the shaft, that’s why there is no any oxygen at the bottom of the well.

On the 20th of October in 2009 the ice stopper in the mouth of the well will be open. An assault team consisting of four persons equipped with potable videocams will descend at the bottom according to a TV show “Shergin’s shaft storm show”.

In the future it is planned, not changing the configuration of the shaft, to organize an exclusive speleological tour for extremists.

It will be a descent to the Shergin’s shaft bottom! (in mountain outfit).

The speleological tour of maxi extrim will be held in summer when there is no oxygen at the bottom of the well.

There is hardly the same place anywhere in the world except Yakutia!

The name of the project with four “Ss” in abbreviation joined together symbolizes an ancient Solar symbol and a square. Sun sign personifies endless ways of life, directed by nature. A square with rays reminds an outline of the well with walls strengthened by wood. The well is open.

It symbolizes a good sign and good luck.

Andrew I
leader of creative studio “The Novigator”.
shaxta_shergina@mail.ru
+7-924-46-11-016

More pics of previous Ysyakh at Flickr.com

This summer Yakutsk’s Ysyakh (Ысыах), Yakut national holidays, will be held on June 27-28, 2009. Location is Ys Khatyn (Yс Хатынг), 20 minutes by car northward from Yakutsk, near the settlement of Zhatai (Жатай). The opening ceremony will take place on the first day, Saturday, at 12.00.

Note: Yakutsk Ysyakh takes place traditionally on the last weekend of June.

It happened for the forth time. Since 2006 on the Day of Epiphany the Orthodox Church in cooperation with the Russian Emergency Service arranges the swimming in a ice-hole on the Lena River. This year was not exclusion and what is more this time it was the most ever visited event. People, who wished to clear from sins by dipping three times in blessed waters, should stand in long line. Outside temperature was -26C – 32C, but river water was warm, about +6C.

See the photographs taken at 9.00 pm on Jan. 19, 2009.

In 2006 the Yakutian Eparchy of the Russian Orthodox Church revived the old ritual that was ceased in 1917. On the Day of Epiphany, local believers used to have lustration in waters blessed by an Orthodox priest. Traditionally, the action took place in cruciform ice-hole made on the surface of the Lena River . People swam in any weather condition. They believed that they would deserve the forgiveness of sins by diving in sanctified waters three times.

Today’s affusion was conducted in the way as it was before the Revolution. The day before, ice-hole was made in the form of cross, a wood cross was installed on the edge of ice surface and Yakutsk and Lensk diocesan did the ceremony of sanctifying waters. In the next day, action started.

How was it four years ago? And what does this event mean? You might want to check the story published at YakutiaToday.com.

Megaprojects of Russia Yakutsk Economic Forum will be held in Yakutsk on September 6-7, 2008.

The forum has got its own website http://www.sakhaforum.ru/ in Russian and English languages.

‘We would like to know the exact dates of the “Ysyakh” event  in the year 2009,’ says another request. Here’s the answer.

The right day to celebrate Ysyakh is the day of solstice.

However, locals may host Ysyakh in the course of the whole summer. Every settlement/village/town/city decides when its dwellers are ready and prefer to host the event. It might be June or even August.

Yakutsk usually has celebration well-known as Ysyakh of Tuymaada at the last weekend in June. In 2009 it must be on June 27-28.

Received an e-mail from Jakarta. A woman whose son departed for Yakutsk to participate at The 4th Children of Asia International Sports Games, is asking judo competition schedule so to know, when her son will compete. Below you may find all events schedule.

Dates and Locations
of the competitions of the IV Children of Asia International Sports Games
July 3-13, 2008

Notes: A- Arrival day, F – Free day, Х- competitions, D – Departure Day

CHILDREN OF ASIA
International Sports Games’ Directorate

More info might be found at GamesAsia2008.ru