Andrey I is a prominent Russian film maker. He is the man, who helped a lot to clean Shergin’s Shaft, the world’s deepest permafrosted well created in Yakutsk, Russia, a few centuries ago. Here is the related news.

Hereby, Andrey I sent me his own story about his extraordinary descent to the bottom of Yakutsk. Praise god, his text in English.

History background:

1837. After a decade of wearisome work in the permafrost a well of 116 meters depth was dug out. Now it is known as Shergin’s Shaft.

1844. Scientific research began. Shergin’s shaft became the world’s “cradle” of science of cave exploring and permafrost studies.

1942. In unknown circumstances the cable used to descent to the bottom of the shaft breaks off. The shaft remains inaccessible for 67 years.

2009. After a long preparation and the digging the snow cork the entrance of the shaft is opened. The 3rd of November is set as the day of storm of the shaft, the attempt of the work in TV format with direct broadcast of the event.

Further, see photographs and a story written by Andrey I himself.

Text: Andrey I.
Photos: Alexey Pavlov.

Here’s Andrey I’s story:

- People seethed around the shed. Algys. Preparation for a short meeting. It was very pleasant to see close friends and acquaintances among people. Yuri Zabolev, Alexandr Solovyev, Alexandr Pakhomov, Yelena Golomareva, Pavel Kazaryan, my son Fedia with my Korean family, and of course Lyudmila Tsoy, the main organizer of the expedition.

Together with Andrey Vysokikh we entered the shed. He brought a light beacon – a light-emitting diode disc which, as he said, would help us to orient during the descent. Trying not to obstruct the preparation of this crazy decision, we squeezed in the square of the well. Andrey threw the beacon down. It dissolved somewhere in the dark.

Algys is completed, but not by the first guest. Before this it was refused several times –the entrance to the lower world should not be opened.

Together with Jenya Zolkin and Marina Kalina, we dressed in orange overalls in the bus of the republic Rescue service; put extra batteries for lantern, cameras and photo cameras into the pockets.

A couple of key words in front of the people gathered. Don’t want to talk. Just hurrying to descent, it’s always cozier under the ground (later I couldn’t help hiccupping). At last we are sent to the narrow, but official world of overalls of the Yakut rescuers, hung ropes and friendly smiles.

Zolkin was the first to go down. I was watching his face. As always, no worries could be noticed. His red “storm” overalls stood out in a bright spot among… was about to say a dozen of people “fussing” around it.

Of course, for an uninitiated person, the endless movement of arms inside a cocoon of ropes that twisted Zolkin looked like an unusual ant crowd. But having a certain experience in cave exploration, I understood better than others how professionally everything was being done.

It should be mentioned that practically there were no uninitiated people around. The inner space of the cottage that covered the entrance of the shaft was only a few square meters. That’s why it was difficult to fit the necessary equipments and group of people providing the descent inside it. From plenty of wishes boiling inside me the prevailing one was that all people who had come to watch the advertised show and were now looking forward to its start in the November frost could see that unique work.

Why it was necessary to have so many rescuers above? Two persons – Zolkin and I, were to go down to the bottom of the shaft – 116 meters deep (to understand its scale, it’s the total size of more than three nine-floor houses put on each other). It was planned that Marina Kailinina would descent for only 30 meters. We were to move in the following order: …. Each participant of the descent has two ropes: the basic and safety. This means that all in all there will be six ropes dangling in the shaft. And they must not get entangled! Everyone that holds one of these ropes, should … feel it, weaken it in time, and stop its etching downwards if necessary. Behind their backs other experts – rescuers, also carry out a very important function – it is important to watch that the ropes that unwind during the descent or gather into a bay during the ascent don’t get entangled. In fact everything is much more difficult.

Fedor secures Zolkin, Valery secures Kalinina, Andrey secures me. Together with Andrey, just like with Zolkin, we have gone to not one expedition.

Zolkin went down.

It’s my turn now. I remembered the way I looked at Zolkin, and artistically assumed a dignified air myself. More “like a showman” to be exact. That’s a special condition when it is necessary to pull yourself together in a certain way. On the one hand you should remain who you are, and on the other hand you should turn into an all-seeing 360 degree eye which sees you from aside as well. The eye should not only see but also it should make comments. There is one feature in the style of “life” program leader. When you say a sentence about what’s happening on the screen, you should already formulate the next sentence and plan variants of the following comments though at that moment you don’t know yet what will happen next.

The carbines clicked on my safety system, and I felt cold breath from the square embrasure of the well. There I heard Zolkin’s message that said that he had stopped in the 20th meter and was waiting for me to move down.

I checked the lighting device for a small finger-type camera which I was hanging in my right hand. On the way down this will be the main camera to illustrate our movements to the bottom of the shaft for the spectators that have gathered above, in front of a plasma screen. The screen is hidden from frost in the salon of a bus in a funny way. The flashes of reporters’ cameras began working. They disturb a lot when you need to pull yourself together during the very culmination moment and define the general degree of readiness of all system that you consist of – “cave explorer – TV presenter – operator.”

Continuing to work “with face” I tried at least for a second absolutely distract from the happening – there won’t be another second. In this situation I usually close my eyes and automatically try to work out any emergency situation, but now I did not have such opportunity. In our case the situation was complicated by the fact that we had not train this program of descent. The most important thing was not to disturb one another in the shaft. I was hardly concerned about how I would film it – I completely relied on the muscular memory gained by experience.

Journalists would frequently peer through the door. It very much looked like a preparation of cosmonauts before the flight. The hands of professionals check on you the strength of the belt, the conditions of knots, and the safety of closing of carbines…

“The main danger is the walls and two rusty metal cables going down just to the center of the shaft… I am hanging near one wall and Jenya is hanging near the other. His rope should not disturb me. In case of inevitable rotation round the axis we should never forget – it is forbidden to touch walls and the cables!”

It’s stupid to ask me if I was worrying. I always worry. Fear helps in extreme situations very much – it mobilizes attention. At last I felt Karpovich’s clap on my shoulder, and trying not to get lost in ropes I clumsily climbed over the protection (the oxygen cylinder suspended from below especially prevented the movements). I put my feet on the walls of the shaft and moved down. After some seconds I was already hanging among the roughly cut tunnel of dirty-yellow ice. Karpovich one again made sure that everything was right and my body together with the oxygen cylinder slowly slid down.

Now I was going through the dug ice cork that used to keep the Shergin’s shaft isolated from the outer world for about three decades. I wanted to go down as soon as possible, the place where everything remained as it was made with human hands in the first half of the 19th century. The ice cork filled the upper thirty meters of the well from the flow of melted water – nobody had taken care of the shaft during the last years. According to our project a special group of workers – alpinists was making a hole in the cork for about two weeks before the SSSS.

At last I went down the ice walls gnawed with instruments. There were smooth forms with ice stalactites around.

It started!

In any event I endlessly value the first impression. The special value of such feelings is that together with their whole unpredictability they also astonish by the currents of their number. It was just this way here. Even with my experience I was fascinated with the singularity of the surrounding for a second, and pushed the lever of the trigger device with my thumb of the left hand harder than it was necessary. As a result I fell down uncontrollably for a couple of meters. That made me sober. I went another ten meters and stopped. I had to wait for Kalinina.

I fixed the trigger device and started to study the surrounding world. I was surrounded by four walls of the wooden well felling. It was evident that the wood had survived wonderfully. It was difficult not to notice two rusty cables as very unpleasant neighborhood in the distance of a stretched hand. Timbered walls together with the cables (and the two ropes of Zolkin) were going down to the darkness, where in about twenty meters the lanterns were flickering on Jenya’s helmet.

The scientific supervisors of the expedition Rudolph Chjan and Lev Li asked him to take some soil and wood test all along the shaft. Evidently that was what he was doing at the moment. In such cases I feel jealous to my friends – they can act “as in real life.” And I have to film it “as in real life.”

We could hear voices quite above us. I looked up. The usual world was already left in the previous life. The opening in the ice stopper through which I had entered the new reality now seemed not so large. It was bordered by ice flows and stalactites. The dense yellow color of the ice added them extra singularity. I lit this beauty by a “chandelier” of three lamps fixed on the helmet. The additional lantern that was connected with the “finger camera” into one set created a game of light in my right hand. I was filming while illuminating the space.

I made a few versions of comments of the happening saying the text to the same “finger camera,” and let myself look around in admiration to analyze the possible development of events – Kalinina was not seen yet.

Admiring the beauty a cave explorer must model possible dangers.

Now the threat number one for Zolkin (he could not see the threat from the depth and it was difficult for him to orient in case of something) were the ice stalactites. If Kalinina breaks one of them by mistake – Jenya will become a target for ice blocks of about 30kg. Cables were threat number two. Their outer side had turned to dust, and only God knows what was inside. Just break one of them in about my level, and it could cut Zolkin while falling down.

I looked down. Light rays of Jenya’s lantern kept moving. He confirmed with his shout that was gathering tests from wooden walls.

Above, among the stalactites, Kalinina suddenly appeared and stopped… in the most inappropriate place.

It is necessary to make a small retreat here. Marina Kalinina (besides directory talents) is a top-quality operator. But she didn’t have a slightest experience in cave exploration. However, during the SSSS we needed a second operator to film me and Zolkin from above. That’s why it was decided to lower marina for 30 meters after training and instructing. But in such an unpredictable descent even endless instructions will never replace experience. That’s why her system of descent and ascent was organized in such a way that it didn’t depend on Marina’s actions. Even if she failed, the rescuers would take her above without her own participation. In such situation I was once again loyal to Karpovich’s and Zolkin’s professionalism. They explained Marina that any person despite the courage and bravery may lose control in an extra extreme situation. During our descent to the Shergin’s shaft it is 50kg of weight that flies down and wipes everything in its way. Marina agreed. She is without any doubt a good fellow. And
she deserved the state of record-holder for participation in the expedition of SSSS. But it was later.

And now, she was slowly rotating on the rope in ten meters above my head between the stalactites and the metal cables. I confess that at some moment I held my breath – it’s not possible to stop the movement grasping the air. “After a second her feet will touch the cables….” But Marina stretched vertically and her feet fell along the cables without touching them. “Now it’s the stalactite’s turn….” It seemed to me that Jenya also was feeling the silence that hang over him. But I had to take my look away from the rotating Marina in order to look down. Marina’s feet flied near the stalactites no less carefully. It became quieter. After some seconds she at last stopped and started to film.

When she was going up I saw in her face such misery that only a real tramp is able to feel.

Jenya and I went down. I was filming and commenting what was happening. But after a while I realized that the image had stopped to broadcast above (besides the two cables a TV cable was also connected to me). I had to stop and change the batteries in the main block of the camera, but in vain. I started to feel uneasy. However, in any case, I was automatically “acting” the role of the TV presenter and operator for certain time.

Now I could concentrate more on getting impressions. However, it seemed that it was the surrounding space that was absorbing you. It was very unusual to move down, down and down constantly in that spot of the earth where any aspiration to the center of the permafrost is connected with unbelievable difficulties. Jenya and I were shouting to each other all the time. Everything was going right.

We passed the boundary of about 50 meters. The wooden support ended. Now the well became wider into a vertical barrel of the roughly cut shaft. I stopped.

Like before, my closes neighbors were two rotten cables which I disliked more and more. But the general atmosphere around became completely different. There were no other attributes of civilization around except the cables. I was swaying on the rope among the roughly dug vertical cave with the diameter of about three meters. This cave was stretching down … “to the lower world,” I admitted to myself.

From 15 meters down Jenya called me to move on. We continued moving.

The surrounding surface of this gulf didn’t seem to be permafrost but it seemed endless. I was eager to find a confirmation of it in the light spots of the lanterns. I remembered Lev Li’s request to mark places where old measuring instruments were set.

In 1844 Russian scientist A.F. Middendorf arrived to Yakutsk. The shaft was used for scientific research under his supervision. Horizontal blast holes of two meters length and thermometers were set in every 15 meters on the walls of the shaft. Nobody had looked for them since that.

Some places looked similar to the description of the blast holes, but no more than that.

“God, how could people come down here in some troughs that were tied to a wooden gate with a cable?”

Before entering the shaft I hang a tablet with detailed scheme of the whole vertical cut of the shaft ob my thigh: sandstone, slate, sandstone, slate… I had forgotten about the tablet. I was on another planet.

Zolkin’s voice interrupted my idyllic amazement. We stopped again. The depth is about 60 meters (two nine-storeyed buildings).

It was time to wear the masks of the oxygen masks. The matter is that just on the eve of the descent a very wise man (alas, I don’t know his name, but he really saved Zolkin and me) expressed an idea of checking the gas structure in the lower part of the shaft trunk. The quick analyze showed that it is not possible to go down this unique well without oxygen equipments. Besides, the deficit of oxygen during the years of civilized life of Yakutsk in the bottom of the shaft there was also harmful gas concentration threatening life.

Now the movement down was accompanied with “grunting” in any breath and “snorting” in any exhalation. However, I had got used to it during the underwater shootings. Remembered the people that once had come down here in troughs. Now they could not succeed in it.

People are made in such way that if something separates his face from the surrounding world, the world immediately becomes different. Unfamiliar. Now I was going down already in the space – cave space, and not in another planet.

I was destruct from lyrics by a piece of wall which was illuminated by the rays of all my lanterns. 73 meters in depth. A flat clod of about one and a half meters had separated from its main mass for some reasons and was hanging weakly. In such situations it’s sensible to act with the principle: “If you are not able to struggle the danger, you better not to think about it.”

I kept on going down, but the above mentioned principle would not work despite all my efforts. My head was itching under the helmet. “Calm down. In this way you may even attract misfortune.”

Now Jenja could not shout me anything in the oxygen mask and I looked down myself. It seemed to me that the light beacon of Andrey Vysokih was already clearly distinguished through Zorkin’s dark round silhouette who was ransacking on the walls by his lantern.

Now I could not take my eyes off that at last approaching dream – off the bottom of the Shergin’s shaft. Despite the oxygen mask which was limiting the view, the pioneer Zolkin was clearly seen. He was standing … in the scatterings of ice splinters.

“This is not the bottom… A part of the chopped ice fell down while the workers were digging the ice cork. There are about two meters to get the real bottom. We’ll try to dig.”

My feet felt support… more exactly its image. The moon. Landing on the space of cave exploration.

My weight plus the weight of the oxygen cylinder made my feet sink till ankles in the porridge of tiny ice splinters near the beacon of Andrey Vysokih. “Speleonaut” Zolkin was standing opposite me. His wide smile was seen through the glass of his oxygen mask.

I am afraid of victories. In that moment of absolute delight we always wait for something … I didn’t finish thinking about it when little stones fell down from above. Zolkin knew it better that me that it was a bad sign – something bigger may follow them.

“This is that very flat clod that had exfoliated in 73 meters!” – hit me in my head.

Zolkin and I stuck to our walls without talking. But instead of the expected blow we heard a typical whistle from above. That’s how a rope or a cable sounds quickly moving in the air.

“Even worse! The iron cable!” Zolkin was thinking the same.

After some seconds something hit my shoulder badly and everything became quiet. Yes, something had torn above, but it was not one of the rusty cables but a telephone cable which was not so massive.

In such a wonderful “relaxation” I had only one thought – to take photos (my camera was not working for a long time already). I took out my checked underwater “Olympus”, pushed the button to switch it on as usual … but nothing happened. My other attempts didn’t change the situation. The fourth attempt coincided with a sound – signal of oxygen cylinder warning that I had only emergency oxygen supply.

“How comes? We didn’t even manage to dig a little. That very historical bottom of Shergin’s shaft is so near, right under us!” but it hit me slowly that this was not the main problem.

Zolkin quietly pronounced in the handheld transceiver: “Evacuation.”

At last I looked above. What I saw was the finishing item of the image of the space surrounding me. The tunnel with rough cut-down walls was stretching up. Then there was darkness from which cables and ropes were hanging. It was difficult to say how far this darkness was. A star was shining in the darkness – this was how the far exit to the common world looked. I wanted to shake my head – what a delusion?

The rope stretched and we started to go up. According to Jenya, he had enough oxygen, and he was going to follow me. I took off my feet from the icy bottom and swam up. I swam up, trying to “grunt” the oxygen more economically. I swam, but I wanted to fly. But you cannot get away from the reality. As the rescuers later told me, they immediately understood that something extraordinary had happened. That’s why everything was mobilized on the fast ascent, maximum fast but without fuss.

During the years of work in extreme situation I have always tried to have everything to depend on me. I am a single worker. But here nothing depended on me. However, even if I had special equipment for independent lifting… even then nothing would have depended on me. Even if I had unfastened the oxygen cylinder I could not, without oxygen, climb up using my muscular strength more than one hundred meters – 37 floors.

It became harder to breath. When brain doesn’t switch off, it starts to intensively work out some key thought. My brain started to count these nonexistent floors, comforting its owner that they are becoming less and less.

It became quite harder to breathe. I had to suck out the oxygen.

“I can catch a lungs squeeze.” I could no more breathe economically – my lungs were exhausted. But the piece of light above still looked like a star.

‘I guess there are around 80 meters left. The oxygen is over.”

My consciousness was struggling with the panic, and was trying to analyze. “If I descant the rest of the oxygen from the cylinder – the lungs squeeze is inevitable, and that’s it. If I tear off the mask, I can get poisoned with gases but there is still a chance. I tore off the mask. The lungs as if straightened.

‘I must not lose consciousness. If so, I can touch and tear off the cables.”

The way upwards was strange. My body was working by itself, it was strenuously breathing, though there was little oxygen left, that’s why it was breathing strenuously.

The frost blew. I looked up. In fact it was warmth – smiling Karpovich was looking at me from above,

P.S. I express my deepest respect to the employees of Security Service of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) without whom the expedition to the depth of the permafrost would not take place, or would be over pitifully: Evgeny Vasilyevich Barishev, Valeriy Bogomolov, Fedor Okhlopkov, Andrey Karpovich, Evgeny Zolkin,Yuri Fedorov, Alexey Sudinov, Dmitry Urgin, Roman Krutihin, Dmitry Krasnyh, Roman Vasilyev.

As you know, Yakutsk, the capital of the Republic of Sakha-Yakutia in Russia’s Siberia, is based on the frozen ground known mostly as the permafrost. What’s that? It means the ground the city stands on is penetrated by ice. Actually, it is the mixture of dust, soil and ice.

See the above video made inside the undeground tunnel used by Yakutsk Permafrost Institute (the only one alike in the wold) and get an idea of what I am trying to tell. In this vid I like most of all those huge frozen snowflakes. If you had be lucky enough to go down inside, please, do not crush snowflakes, as it took decades for them to became so awesome :)

Previously, I wrote much about Yakutsk Permafrost Institute. The last post was called Yakutsk Permafrost Institute: Why did climate changes not affect permafrost in Yakutia?

Check also other posts mentioned in the list Similar Posts in the bottom of the current post.

Have a great day and give me your Like and RT, if you like the video :)

A never-frozen brook in the Verkhoyansk Range, East Yakutia, Siberia

One day I received two inquiries regarding drinking water in Yakutsk. The first one arrived from India saying, “What about your food habits (including drinking water)during winter?” The second request was asked by an American teacher, who was writing a paper on the use of drinking water in the Siberian city of Yakutsk. The latter contained more questions that the first one had.

Below see questions and my answers.

Q: I was wondering where you get your drinking water in Yakutsk, and if you have any pollution. Also, do you guys have ground water? I am asking this because my topic for Science is Yakutsk!

A: Well, residents of Yakutsk City prefer to drink boiled filtered water. It is not because of pollution. The reason is that filters are not used in the city’s water supply systems. Villagers use water from rivers. In the winter, they melt ice cubes from rivers’ ice cover.

Ground waters are not used, permafrost is pretty deep here. A couple of centuries ago, one merchant, Fyodor Shergin, tried to dig the well and get to ground water, but eventually his well became the world’s deepest ice vertical tunnel. It’s known as Shergin’s Shaft now.

More info about that attempt you might find in the “Descending into the world’s deepest shaft in the permafrost zone” post. Besides, ground waters are not demanded, as there are many rivers and lakes around.

That’s all what I can say for now. It’s a pretty short info, as I am not a scientist and unable to provide more profound facts for your writing work. You’d better come to Yakutsk and collaborate with republic colleagues. Think, this is more efficient way to obtain unique and highly interesting information.

Q: How much water the average person uses, and if Yakutsk has any water issues?

A: It is hard to say how much water city residents consume. Let’s take my family (2 adults and 2 little kids) as an example. We order two big bottles of drinking water (each 25 litres) and that’s enough for 5 days only. It comes we use 10 litres daily. This water we drink and use for cooking.

Have no idea how much other families consume. Certainly, it will depend on their purposes of such water use. Some uses DIY-filtered waters for cooking and drinking, a few would prefer to take waters right from faucets. Some loves drinking waters a lot…

But I think 10 litres might be considered as the average.

No big problems with water supply. Look at the map and you will see that there are a lot of rivers in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) and there are many private companies that are ready to supply waters from them. Some businessmen start even thinking over exporting still water to China, but it is more like an idea to exercise on.

Dwellers of Yakutsk complain mainly about the absence of good filtering equipments used in the city water supply system.

Received a request from Jenanne, a Scotland University of Aberdeen PhD Student. Her major is Social Anthropology, so all her questions sounded accordingly. Mainly she wondered how popular the Sakha (Yakut) language was on the Internet. I said I had a friend of mine, who’s hobby was to write in his native language everything and everywhere in every corner of the worldwide net.

The person I recommended to torture with those questions was Halan (that’s how he prefers to call himself online), who stands behind Sakha Wikipedia. I reforwarded Jenanne’s questions to him. He answered and then Jenanne (currently she studies Russian, but speaks Ukrainian pretty good, cause her mother is originated from Ukraine) translated his text into English. Find Halan’s replies further:

1. Is Sakha your native language? What other languages do you speak?
Yes, my parents speak this language, my grandparents spoke it and I myself didn’t know another language until entering school. Now I speak Russian almost as a native speaker. I studied English later, but this was a requirement of a training program in school and university – that is, the approach to the study was rather formal, therefore unfortunately I don’t speak it for practical purposes. I can read texts on simple themes, and also medical texts with a dictionary.

2. What is your profession?
First – an automobile driver, secondly a doctor – I have a PhD in epidemiology, and third – a manager. At the present time, I manage a small business delivering medicines and medical services.

3. How did you get involved with working on the Sakha Wikipedia? About how many people are collaborating on the Sakha Wikipedia?
I have children growing up, who in my opinion should be proud of belonging to the Sakha people and of their native language. But to be proud of a language with limited possibilities is difficult. Therefore I want that my rich and ancient Sakha language to become widely used in all spheres of human activity. Wikipedia can help a language become universal. From May 2008, when a section in Sakha opened, I became its bureaucrat (administrator). Now the Sakha Wikipedia has about 6000 articles. By this indicator we are in 4th place in Russia (after the sections in Russian, Chuvash, and Yiddish). For reference, in the country there are more than 100 languages that do not have their own national education or formation outside of Russia.

There are no specialized statistics about how many people write or use Wikipedia in our language. But I can say that there are from about 10 people actively writing to about 50 people who write from time to time.

4. Are you involved in any other Sakha language websites, or any other activities to promote the language?
Yes, I am trying to socialize on Sakha forums in Sakha. In the last three years I am actively publishing articles in the press, keeping special blogs in the Sakha language, and entering in studies and public forums in support of native language. I am thechairman of the social/public organization Tas Sakhalar, the task of which is to support connections with Sakha living outside the boundaries of Yakutia.

5. In your opinion, why is it important to promote and spread the usage of the Sakha language on the Internet?
The widening/broadening of the representation of language on the Internet and in general of informational-communication technologies is one of the most important conditions of the retention and development of a language, and of transmission of cultural information to the future generations.

6. What do you think are the most popular websites for people in the Sakha Republic? (e.g. which news sites, which networking sites – Facebook, MySpace, YouTube…)
I don’t completely understand. If you are speaking about the most popular sites of Yakutians, then they are very different and it is unlikely one can gather such statistics. If you are talking about languages, then it is my personal feeling that the most popular ones are usually those sites in Russian.

7. On which Internet sites do you see people using the Sakha language the most?
Recently I made a rather superficial analysis, not pretending in truth in the last instance. It is such that of 34 sites getting into my field of vision (excluding my own blogs) only 15 are completely done in the Sakha language or have a full Sakha version at the same level as other language versions. Still 11 rather often place Sakha texts alongside foreign languages. 8 are done in Russian, but have materials facilitating contact in Sakha (dictionaries, ethnic music, etc).

8. Are there any internet sites that are only in Sakha (besides the Wikipedia) and not Russian, English or any other language?
I answered above.

9. Do younger or older people tend to use the Sakha language more on the Internet? (What age are the people who use Sakha the most on the Internet?)
Specialist research hasn’t been conducted, and this still awaits our own researchers. I think that more middle-ageed representatives study language on the Internet, since the older generation in general badly controls technologies, and youth socialize more in two languages at the same time or even in a mixed language.

10. Do you see more Sakha speakers using English on the Internet, or is using Russian still more popular?
There is a definite tendency. In the language 20 a whole generation of Sakha appeared, controlling well one or two foreign languages (English, German, and French). The Russian language is controlled on a very good level at a practical manner by all youth and all city-dwellers, and at a passable level by all adult inhabitants of the Republic.

11. I found on the Orto Doidu website that there was a list of words in Sakha for computer terminology: http://doydu.sakhaopenworld.org/01tylgt.php. Do you know who worked together to create these? Are you seeing these words used a lot on the Internet, or do you think it is more common to use the Russian or English equivalents?

Yes, this little dictionary was made by my good acquaintance Bert Jikty (Yakov Alexandrov), a man having engineering training, presently a patriot of the nation. The terms Bert Jikty suggests are usually used on Sakha sites, for example, for the translation of the Wiki interface, I based it precisely on this dictionary. Computer terms such as those worldwide, penetrate into Russia from English-speaking countries. Here they at first are adapted to the Russian language, and then penetrate into other languages of the Russian Federation. At the present time, in Russia there appears to be many people speaking the English language no worse than Russian, and therefore people have appeared who consider it correct to borrow terms directly from English avoiding the Russian equivalents.

12. Do you notice many people ‘mixing’ languages when they communicate on the internet? Like speaking Sakha, and using Russian or English words too in their speech?
I don’t completely understand the question. Among Sakha youth it’s always been fashionable to insert (use) some Russian words in one’s sentences. In recent times the use of English expressions has become fashionable. Well, the Internet is a mirror of society, therefore there as well such things are unavoidable.

A month ago the message arrived from Sweden. A horses breeding enthusiast Karl wrote:

First of all, I want to tell you how fantastic it is of you to put up this opportunities to ask questions about Yakutia.

Thanks for your positive feedback :)

Well, I´m very interested in the Yakut ponies. There is actually not so much about them on the Internet. From pictures I have seen they look a lot like Shetland ponies. Are there any of them in Europe? Or have they newer ever exported or sold any horse?

I live in Sweden and love horses. I want to know everything possible about these wonderful horses.

My reply is the following.

1. Frankly saying, I don’t know anything about the Yakut ponies :) Maybe, Karl meant the Yakut horses. They really look like ponies. Relatively short, but strong. The Sakha people are proud of them. As far as you know, Yakuts’ major activity was horse breeding.

2. There isn’t any of them in Europe, unfortunately. I reforwarded this question to Valery Protopopov, pro-rector of the Yakut Agriculture Academy. He said there was no Yakut horses export experience ever recorded. So… be the first. Local breeding experts are very interested in it.

WHAT IS THE YAKUT HORSE?
Read the article that was published once in local newspapers many years ago. Thank God, I saved it and can share it now.

Written by N.D. Alexeev, N.P. Stepanov

Breeding of the Yakut species of horse, developed under severe conditions of the North by people’s selection, is a traditional occupation of the rural inhabitants in Yakutia. The horse- breeding, basing on year-round pasturing, has become one of the main and profitable branches of stock-breeding, the base of the life style and economy of rural inhabitants. In gross meat production, horsemeat occupies 22-25%, making up to 40 % at some farms.

Yakut horse is the most northern breed being developed all the year round in the open air under extreme northern conditions. Its spreading range on the territory of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) goes far beyond the Arctic circle to forest-tundra zone, where the fluctuation of the absolute annual temperatures reaches 108 С (from +38 to -70 С ), and winter pasturing period lasts for 8 months a year.

According to modern scientific data Yakut horse is one of the most ancient breeds in the world. Researchers assume that modern Yakut horse is a direct descendant of primitive and the most ancient domesticated horses that came to this severe region from the centre of domestication. Immune and genetic markers revealed high genetic similarity of Yakut horses with horses of Central-Asian origin (Akhal-Teke, Arabian, Kazakh , Kirghiz , blooded saddle-horse) and Polish aboriginal horse.

Yakut horse is bred by the pasturing method, based on year-round use of natural pastures. Yakut horses have a complex structure. Local types of Yakut horse were formed under influence of natural and climatic conditions of specific areas and as a result of different levels of mixture with other breeds.
Types within the breed

When differentiating types within the breed, the most important criterion was what the original material that connected all existing types was. It turned out to be thoroughbred Yakut horse bred in central and Vilyuisk regions. They became the main source for all other types of Yakut horse.

Original type horses are blooded Yakut horses. They descend from Lake Baikal horses that were brought by ancestors of the Yakut people and they are their direct descendants. Thoroughbred breeding and unchangeable herd pasturing during several centuries enabled keeping original Yakut horse features. They are more adapted to severe condition of keeping: winter frost, scanty and little nutritious feed. Their external construction and the type of build changing according to a season of the year characterize the final degree of morphological adaptation of the animal to influence of extreme environmental conditions.

In general, these horses are not big but have a harmonious built. In summer they do not differ much from cultivated types of southern origin in the way of build. In autumn, after accumulating fat, they differ in mass and stout construction. The head is of average size, with straight profile. The neck is short and broad; withers are low but wide enough. The back is of average length, the croup is wide. There occur horses with shortcut and loppy croup. The chest is deep and comparatively wide. Horses of this type have short and strong legs with firm hoofs without crackles. There occur closely set legs at the hock and some narrowness of the hock angle. The dominating colors of the original type horses: mousey of different shades, roan, various shades of grey, chestnut, red, skewbald and seldom mottled.

Yansky type horses are pure-blooded Yakut horses, whose ancestors came from the original type that bred on the Yana and Indigirka rivers valleys. In their exterior they are similar to their primary type – horses of the original type, but they are more massive and larger. Yansky type horses differ in stout constitution, high adaptability to winter frost with poor pasture feed. All this is possible due to great fattening ability of this type horses during short summer and autumn period. The head is of average size with straight and concave profile, forehead is wide. The neck is short and fat, withers are wide and low, the back is of average length, and croup is comparatively long and wide. The chest is broad and deep. The legs are strong and set regularly. There are dominating light colors like all the northern horses have: grey and mousey of various shades, roan and others.

Kolymsky type horses are also pure-blooded Yakut horses, bred on the rivers of Kolyma and Alazeya valleys. Forefathers of their ancestors also came from the original type. They are typically northern horses.

This type horses are characterized by strong constitution, good fattening ability. The head is massive, with straight profile, neck is of average length, well muscled, and withers are average and wide. The back is straight, of average length; the croup is high, mildly deflated and round. The chest is deep and broad; legs are strong, regularly set. The dominating color of the Kolymsky type horses is grey of various shades, down to white, which is sometimes mistakenly associated with the influence of extinct wild so-called “tundra horse”.

Enlarged type. This type horses are received as a result of blood-mixing of farm breeds (the Orlov trotter and Russian heavydraft horse) to the horses of central and western Yakutia farms, as well as the result of improved feeding and breeding. A typical feature of the enlarged type horses is its longer body and relatively high withers. The head is of average size, little hook-nosed. The neck is of average length, back is straight and wide, and croup is high and muscled. The legs are put regularly, hoofs are strong enough. The dominating colors of these horses are: mousey, chestnut, roan, red, skewbald, grey of various shades.

Megezheksky type . Yakut horses bred by mixing blood of Kuznetsky type horses. This type was finally formed in the 1990s and selected as an independent type. Mostyly, these horses are bred at Stepan Vasiliev stud farm in Nyurbinsky region. The name of the type comes from the place of its development at Megezheksky settlement. This type is also bred at some places of Nyurbinsky and Suntarsky regions. Some outstanding examples have the mass of 600 kg and more.

The head is relatively big and the forehead is wide, with broad jowls, and straight and a little bit hooked profile; the eyes are lively, ears are short; the neck is of average length, straight and massive. The withers are of average height, tall enough. The back of the Megezheksky type horse is wide, straight and long that provides well expressed meat forms. Little “softness” of the back occurs in old horses. The loin is wide and strong, well muscled. The croup is high and wide with well developed musculature, the chest is broad and deep, ribs are round.

Horses of the Megezheksky type are characterized by regularly limbs setting. Setting defects like (toes-out or toes-in) are extremely rare. The limbs are strong, with well expressed tendon.

The colors of horses of the Megezheksky type are varied and basically are broken down evenly: light brown with a black mane and tail (19.5%), roan (16.9%), chestnut (16.6%), grey (13.7%) and mousey (2.3%).
Productive qualities

Horses are bred for meat and milk production, as well as for work. Meat output and slaughter yield depend on the age and nutritional state of animals. Foals at age of 6 months give at the average 106 kg , at the age of 2.5 years – 165 kg , while adult horses give 228 kg , and their slaughter yield is respectively: 55,9; 49,1 and 54,5%. High velocity of foals’ growth before 6-month age is provided with comparatively high milk productivity of mares of the Yakut breed. The peak of mares yield is observed at the beginning of lactation, when it reaches 18- 20 liters . Different sorts of horses mares’ yield for 6 months to lactation varies from 1 500 to 2 400 liters .
Reproductive qualities

Yakut mares are capable to give full-fledged posterity till 18-20-year age under such severe living conditions. Work output of foals from every one hundred January mares reaches 60-65 % in average, at good years up to 80 % and more.

The main structural unit of a horse herd is a herd, headed by a stallion. The herd consists of 10-15 mares and the current-year yield. The size of the herd depends on the age and herding qualities of a stallion-producer. Young animals of the past years yield form separate herds according to sex and age.

Fillies reaching the age of three years are released into herds of reproducing composition. Newly formed herds are kept in corals for few days and only afterwards they are released.
Adapting qualities

Yakut horse is perfectly adapted to living conditions. It is also proved by seasonal periods of mass foaling that basically occurs at May and June. Foaling takes place at the most favorable time of the year, so that a yield would prepare well to meet severe winter conditions during summer-autumn time.

The type of built of Yakut horse changes twice a year: in winter it takes full-bodied appearance, in summer – shallow-bodied. So in winter the body area decreases, giving less heat, and in summer, on contrary, it increases, which results in greater heat loss. Decrease of a body area is also reached by shortening of emerging parts of body: ears, legs and neck.

Adaptation to winter frost is reached also by growing of thick and long hair. Young animals have longer and thicker hair than adult horses do. In adult horses, stallion-producers have thick hair. High heat insulating characteristics of Yakut horses winter fur increase due to thick core layer in all the categories of hair, which takes up to 81 % its thicknesses. It provides still air layer around the animal body. Sub dermal fat layer, accumulated in favorable, from feeding point of view, summer-autumn period reaches thickness of 2- 3 cm and serves as another heat insulator during frost.

Besides morphological adapting qualities Yakut horse also possesses unique physiologically biochemical mechanism of adaptation to frost. The breath frequency and respiratory volume considerably fall in winter, from 20 breathings per minute in summer to 10- 12 in winter and 19.8 liters per minute in summer to 12.6 l/min in winter respectively, while the blood circulation speeds up with circulating shelters volume increasing to 24 % and shelter volume per a minute – to 59%. In addition, heat production level falls from 8.65 kJ/kg/h in summer to 4.83 kJ/kg/h in winter.

During long cold winter the heat balance is ensured by economical consumption of fat reserve, which takes up to 20-22 % from flourish weight. The accumulated reserve of the internal fat of a well-fed adult-horse reaches 35 kg .

High adapting qualities of Yakut horses to extreme northern conditions contribute to relatively high reproductive qualities. The main limiting factors of breeding horses of this type are availability of pastures, their quality and accessibility, as well as duration of extreme environmental factors (low temperature, icing, sever winter winds).
Use in economy

Horse for the Yakut people, first of all, is a means of transportation and pulling force. Yakut horse is characterized by endurance and unpretentiousness to its feed. Until lately, horses made 60-70% of haymaking. Yakut horse as a beast of burden was used since ancient times. Kolymsk merchants would carry cargoes from Yakutsk to Srednekolymsk on the same horses, which is the 2450 kilometers distance. Herewith, more than 1.5 thousand kilometer they covered only on pasturages.

In the XXI century Yakut horse is used in farm works, haymaking, hunting and fishing in the countryside. Summer national holiday “Ysyakh” is usually accompanied with horse race. Horses are used in tourism, in walking children, etc.
Major scientific works on the branch development:

• The scientific expedition materials, submitted in 1987 to approbations of the Yakut breed.

• Plans of selective and tribal works in horse-breeding.

• Ways of increasing herd productivity and its rational use.

• Original recipes of mineral and vitamin additives for Yakut types of horses.

• Technologies of the horse-breeding production processing.

• Systems of horse-breeding under conditions of Yakutia.

• Technologies of the national milk products production.

• Vaccines against diarrhea and salmonellosis abortion in horses and methods of its usage.
“Sakhabactisubtil” preparation for treatment and prevention of disbacteriosis, increased horse immune reactivity.