Now dubbed as the coldest village on earth, the Siberian village of Oymyakon has become the coldest inhabited settlement in the world at -50 C recorded in January alone. Your eyes will freeze into a solid mere moments after stepping outside the warmth of your house. It is so cold that special electronic thermometers were required to record the icy cold, bone cracking temperatures.
People have tried to turn the place into a tourist spot, but the village is so incredibly cold that the project was abandoned. Why would anyone want to subject themselves to sub zero temperatures which could result in their deaths?
Although the temperature has been registered officially as 59C, the locals have also recorded readings as low as negative 67 C. Which is incredibly low for any permanently settled and inhabited place on earth. No one wants to live in such a desolate place.
Before turning into a permanent settlement, it was used as a special spot for reindeer herders back in the 1920s and 30s. But overtime communities of people began to settle down over there on a permanent basis, which is incredibly bold.
The village is home to only about 500 people over there. This incredibly tiny community has to make do with what ever scarce resources they have access to and try to survive in sub zero temperature without outside help.
In 1933, the lowest recorded temperature for Oymyakon was sitting at about minus 67.7 C. This is accepted as the lowest ever in the northern hemisphere by official figures. Although lower temperature have been recorded, no one actually lives there.
The society faces problems which most of us don't. Such as pen inks freezing, glasses freezing on their faces and even batteries losing proper functionality because the chemicals are not designed to operate in extreme freezing conditions.
The local people over there are forced to run their cars all day because they fear not being able to restart them afterward. Imagine the fuel this must require, but they have to make do with what they have.
The earth is absolutely rock solid. Even the sand is rock solid, so the people cannot bury their dead. Of course burning them into ashes is out of the question because of the resources required. The earth has to be thawed for burial to take place.
Unlike the rest of us over at warmer temperatures, fish vendors in Siberia have no need for refrigerators to keep their wares cold out of fear of them rotting away. The environment takes care of bacteria for them.
The human body continues to boggle our minds because this is one of the extreme ends of man's survival. We wonder if they can survive even colder temperatures if push comes to shove. Is there any extreme we cannot survive?
Can these locals freeze to death by accident? What if they don't get access to prompt medical aid? What if the temperatures drop even more so because of the ever changing climate of earth? We hope they can evacuate on time.
It requires an incredible amount of self restraint in order to be able to survive such extreme temperature cases. We wonder if these people could be used to test a colony on Mars. Elon Musk should try contacting them.
Mars on the other hand is relatively tolerable than on Earth, because believe it or not, the worst that temperature can go below to is -20 degrees Celsius. Earth on the other hand has recorded temperatures of -70. So we can probably send a few humans over there.
Venus on the other hand is a living, breathing hell for humans. The pressure is enough to crush us into a tin can and the temperature can boil us down into smithereens. So we cannot colonize Venus at all.
We are proud to know these people exist. They can be considered as role models of sorts. We wonder if given the option, they would choose to live elsewhere. We certainly can't ever imagine living so dangerously.