Саха Сирэ — Land of the Sakha

I was born in Sakha (Yakutia), in northeastern Siberia. It is an immense land of more than three million square kilometres: great rivers, larch taiga, tundra, mountains and permafrost. Nearly forty per cent of the territory lies north of the Arctic Circle. 

The name Саха Сирэ means “the land of the Sakha.” The Lena Pillars rise beside the Lena River like an immense stone wall. They are one spectacular image of Yakutia, but its deeper beauty lies in the coexistence of an uncompromising environment, human settlement and a living Indigenous culture.

Winter

In parts of Yakutia, winter temperatures fall below −60°C. Houses, heating, transport, clothing, food, working hours and travel must all adapt to it.

Yet the people of the North do not merely survive. They build families, schools, towns, art and humour, and learn to treat conditions that appear impossible elsewhere as ordinary. The achievement is the creation of normal human life in an environment that allows very little carelessness. Yakutia’s extraordinary continental climate can range from roughly −60°C in winter to around +40°C in summer.

The Other Extreme: Light, Heat and Mosquitoes

Summer arrives quickly. The same land becomes green, bright and unexpectedly hot. Rivers open, hay is cut, families travel, and the short season acquires an intensity of its own.

Ysyakh, the Sakha summer festival, marks renewal and the beginning of a new annual cycle after the long winter. It brings together ceremony, traditional dress, music, horses, food and the osuokhai circle dance. Then come the mosquitoes—sometimes in clouds—and the northern summer stops looking gentle. The contrast is part of Yakutia’s attraction: deep winter silence, intense summer light, and very little moderation between them

Climbing paradise