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00:01Right now I'm in a place where temperatures can drop as low as minus 71.2 degrees Celsius.
00:08And it's so cold here that your lips can freeze through your food within a few seconds.
00:17Frostbite here can set in within minutes.
00:19And if you don't move for a couple of hours, you will freeze to death.
00:23How many minutes outside, naked, without clothes, can you survive?
00:27Your limbs, most likely, the best they can handle in this cold is probably 20 minutes before you will have
00:35to get them amputated.
00:37Yes, that's absolutely necessary in this cold because in my previous video about Jakutsk,
00:42I got frostbite on my nose four times within just a few minutes.
00:46And that made me wonder, how do people survive in these extreme cold conditions with more basic lifestyles?
00:52So first I'm taking a car ride of about 18 hours to a very remote village without modern facilities.
00:58And the end goal of this, meeting a man who has been living alone for 40 years in the most
01:02remote part of this region.
01:08It's okay.
01:10Is it all okay? The car is not any damage?
01:12No.
01:13What would happen if the car breaks down right here?
01:18We not survive.
01:21Did you know that many people have died simply because their car broke down during the journey?
01:25So if your car has even a small issue and the engine won't start, eventually the engine oil can freeze
01:31within 20 minutes.
01:32And if the engine oil freezes, the car becomes completely unusable.
01:35And you also can't heat it anymore because the battery will fill too.
01:39And if you are on a remote road, which happens very quickly in Russia because it's so fast, you simply
01:44freeze to death.
01:48Is it cold?
01:50It is cold.
01:55It's cold.
01:57It's cold.
01:57Is it cold?
02:00It's cold.
02:00It's cold.
02:01It's completely frozen.
02:02Like you cannot...
02:04Well, this is what hypothetically happens to a person when you sit in the cold for several hours without warmth
02:11or movement.
02:12We had just arrived in a small town called Suntar and the very first thing we had to
02:17do was park the car in a heated garage otherwise it would freeze solid and break down because
02:21right now it's already minus 48 degrees and I can tell you this it's only going to get colder
02:26and colder. So it's a double system because it's too cold right now. It's electricity plus the wood.
02:33In Suntar the town relies on a central coal-fired heating system where the heat produced is carried
02:38to the homes through above ground pipes ensuring that the residents at least have a basic level
02:43of warmth. Right now I'm with a farmer who keeps his own horses and those horses can survive
02:49temperatures as low as minus 70 degrees and they are actually the only species in Yakutsk that can
02:54live independently without human help unlike cows. Over hundreds of thousands of years these horses
03:00have perfectly adapted to the extreme Siberian climate. Their shorter legs and compact bodies
03:05help minimize heat loss keeping warmth close to the core. This is a tribe and a tribe has only one
03:11male. All the others are female. They are used to give birth. Right one father eight mothers. The mares
03:18regularly give birth to falls and during especially harsh winters some of these young horses are
03:23traditionally used as a source of food by farming families in Yakutsk. So this is horse meat and it's like
03:32deeply frozen. That's how they preserve it and kill the parasites. From a cow? Horse. Holy moly. It's pretty
03:41crazy to think that this is their only meat source for the whole winter and their freezer for food
03:45is outside. Instead of inside what we're normally used to.
03:51Try it.
03:58Oh I get the reflex.
04:03Take a close look at these hands. When I first saw it I thought there was something wrong with it.
04:08So I asked about it.
04:09Oh he got lost actually when he was in the first grade in school. In the winter.
04:15A random hunter found him at night.
04:19And his hand was frozen. Like he had frostbites.
04:22And now his hand on the plants.
04:27So he left home at nine in the morning.
04:30He was only found deep at night. So he spent almost an entire clock outside.
04:35The longer I look at this man. The more it becomes clear that his body as a local.
04:40Has been shaped to survive the brutal cold.
04:43Also his nose barely pops out. Compared to my nose.
04:46Which prevents of course frostbite hitting his nose.
04:49And the wind making it even colder.
04:50And in this region sunlight is constantly reflecting on the snow and ice.
04:54And his eyes have been adapted to it.
04:56If you look closely you can see there less round.
04:59With an extra fold of skin that helps filter the harsh light.
05:02And prevent snow blindness.
05:05What is the temperature today?
05:08Minus 53.
05:10That's fucked up.
05:12I almost lost my brother while I pee.
05:15You know?
05:16Why?
05:17What happened?
05:19You don't understand me. It's joking.
05:22Alright we're now heading to an even more remote village.
05:25Which means that there won't be a supermarket anymore.
05:27So we stopped by this local store to stock up on food for the coming week.
05:30And one thing that stood out to me immediately.
05:32Is that almost all food is heavily processed.
05:35Because crops of course can hardly grow here.
05:37So nearly everything has to be imported.
05:40So Russia has some kind of sanctions about brands?
05:43All the brands have left Russia officially.
05:45So we have now imported from our Asian friends.
05:49Coca-Cola.
05:49It's cold.
05:50It's cold.
05:51It's cold.
05:51Since 2022 all the European brands have left Russia because of the war.
05:58It's cold.
06:00It's cold.
06:01It's cold.
06:01It's cold.
06:02It's cold.
06:02It's cold.
06:02So in the evening when they leave they put some of the wood that later turns into cool.
06:08That's enough to sustain the heat till the next day.
06:11Sundar is generally connected to a central heating system that keeps most of the village warm.
06:16Except for a few buildings like the supermarket.
06:19And here they rely on a more manual system.
06:21Every hour a significant amount of wood has to be fed into a furnace to generate heat.
06:25Which is then channeled above ground and directed into the store.
06:31Why are we doing this?
06:32So we are going to two very remote villages.
06:35One village although has 58 people.
06:39They don't have a store.
06:40We're about to drive for 5 hours to an even more remote village.
06:43Where modern facilities are almost non-existent.
06:46And to reach that village we actually had to bring a large can of gasoline with us.
06:50Simply because there are no gas stations out there.
06:52And it really shows just how remote and isolated the place is.
06:56And for a Dutch traveler going there is something pretty special.
06:59And that's also why I ended up meeting one of the regional leaders from Sundar.
07:03He praised me, shook my hand and wanted to meet me purely because I had done something so unusual.
07:09Travelling to a place that remote.
07:27Alright, this is the final outfit.
07:29I'm wearing like 25 layers.
07:32I don't know.
07:32I don't even know.
07:34I'm in a really remote place.
07:35So I had to make sure I didn't get any frostbite.
07:38Because there is no hospital nearby here.
07:40And it's crazy to think that many many years ago.
07:43People had to dress like this and hunt for themselves just to survive in these extreme conditions.
07:47And what's even more fascinating is that here in this remote village.
07:50They still practice some of those ancient techniques to get by and live a normal life.
07:55And I am about to show you some of those processes.
07:58Alright, we're right now going to like the place where they get their water.
08:01They chop ice cubes out of the lake.
08:04And they melt it.
08:05Therefore, they can drink it when they warm it up in their homes.
08:08They live like in a really simple way.
08:23It's pretty insane for me to see how much effort people have to put in just to get some water.
08:27Because in the Netherlands where I live, you simply turn on the tap and that's it.
08:31But here you have to saw some blocks of ice out of a frozen river, break them loose.
08:35And just like that, you end up with a few chunks of ice which you can later melt at home
08:40for water.
08:40How many times a week do you need to do this?
08:44How many times a week do you need to do this?
08:51Normally, the residents devote an entire day to cutting and loosening blocks of ice from the river.
08:56And then they pile them up in large quantities in their backyard.
08:59And in the backyard we have what is called an ice bed.
09:02And on an ice bed you have like a whole huge pile of ice.
09:06And normally you would bring in like three, four blocks of ice every day for it to melt in the
09:11barrel.
09:11The local quickly made a hole in the ice so that the water returns to the river level and the
09:16gap is filled.
09:23It is crazy to see that every single drop of water turns into ice within a couple of seconds.
09:32Right now I'm going to do some experiments that showcase just how extremely cold it is here.
09:37And remember, the stuff you're going to see is only possible in minus 40, minus 50 degrees.
09:56It doesn't move. It will not move.
10:00Three, two, one.
10:06So this is what happens when you lay your fruits outside in minus 50.
10:10That's also the reason why no fruits or vegetables grow here in the wild in the winter.
10:21This one, this one, this one actually hurts.
10:27Yo, help.
10:28Help, let's go.
10:29Help, it's painful.
10:30Inside, inside, inside, inside.
10:33No, no, no.
10:34Don't touch, don't touch, don't touch.
10:41No, no, no.
10:42No, don't touch, don't touch.
10:44Don't touch, please, don't touch, please.
10:45With this cold, it's extremely dangerous to press your tongue against a deeply frozen object.
10:50Because it can easily stick to it and if you're not careful enough, you can really manage yourself.
10:57We just arrived at a primary school.
11:00And this school only has three students.
11:02Which actually makes sense since there are only 58 people living in this small village.
11:14This is a graduation photo of just three people from 2024.
11:20How are the teachers getting paid if only three students exist here?
11:26The salary here is calculated not through the number of students you have, but rather by the number of hours
11:34a teacher gets to teach class.
11:36How do the kids feel when they're so isolated? There are only three kids.
11:39So there's only elementary school here, right?
11:43You stay till the fourth grade.
11:44After the fourth grade, you have to go to the boarding school in the nearest village.
11:48And when they go there, her child personally was very happy.
11:51Because it was like many children, many opportunities, many things to do.
11:55But while studying here, there was no many complaints.
12:01How many years do you live here?
12:0572 years he's been living here.
12:0772 years?
12:08That's like your lifetime.
12:10This man has lived here his entire life and he works as a farmer, managing a large number of goats.
12:15Do you shower?
12:21He has a soda.
12:23So he doesn't shower?
12:25No many showers here. There are no showers. There are only sodas.
12:27How do you clean?
12:28In a sauna.
12:30Yeah, people here shower in a sauna simply because it's about minus 50 degrees outside and running water is just
12:35not possible.
12:36Pipes, for example, would immediately freeze.
12:39And that's why households in these remote villages don't have a regular shower and instead they use a baña.
12:44And now let's take a look at the toilet situation.
12:47How do they poop here in this cold?
12:51So first, most of the toilets are outside of the house.
12:54Because there's no plumbing system to flush waste away from your home.
12:57So everything goes into a pit like this.
13:00They dig a hole about 2 meters deep and throughout the winter everyone uses it.
13:04And over time the waste can build up to nearly a meter high.
13:07Luckily, because everything is completely frozen, it doesn't smell.
13:10And you know what else doesn't smell?
13:12The local people.
13:20I wear this t-shirt for almost one week.
13:26You can smell.
13:27It doesn't have smell.
13:28You don't smell?
13:30Yeah, I only smell the shirt.
13:31All Iqqqian people don't have smells.
13:33What?
13:34You don't smell?
13:35What the fuck?
13:35Well, I do smell.
13:37Most people in Siberia naturally don't have body odor.
13:40This is because their sweat contains less fat, which means bacteria can't produce strong smells.
13:45This trait developed thousands of years ago in cold environments, where sweating less and having cleaner skin was an advantage
13:52for survival.
13:52In wintertime, every resident gathers firewood and burns it inside their home to stay warm.
13:58It acts as a kind of central heating system.
14:00The heat circulates through the house before escaping through the chimney, warming the entire space.
14:05To keep it comfortable, this process needs to be repeated around 5 or 6 times a day, making it possible
14:10to live well in a simple village like here.
14:22So right now they are like making holes into this lake, so the cows can drink later on.
14:28We are heading over to the cows now.
14:30And I'm generally curious how anyone manages to keep cattle in temperatures as low as minus 50.
14:36So every morning the cows leave the barn and make their way to the river, where the farmer has cut
14:40a hole in the ice for them to drink.
14:42And they have to keep moving because cows struggle to cope with such extreme cold.
14:46In fact, these animals are completely dependent on humans to survive here.
14:49They wouldn't last in the wild under these conditions.
14:52And so within about 5 minutes they are already heading back inside.
14:55Did you notice it's very warm inside?
14:58Yeah, in the stall.
14:59In the fall, before the first real cold starts, you take the poop of the cows and you just like
15:05clay it, like use it as a clay to isolate it completely from any cold.
15:10And as you can see, there is no heating inside.
15:12Nothing.
15:12It's very warm.
15:14How is it possible?
15:15The isolation is way too good.
15:16For just 3 months of the year, they eat grass outside that naturally grows here.
15:20But for the remaining 9 months, they rely entirely on the hay the farmer has prepared.
15:24And believe me, it takes a huge amount of effort to gather and store enough hay to feed this many
15:28cows through those months.
15:32It's a huge amount of effort.
15:35During the Second World War, the biggest loss in terms of like humans was on Soviet Union.
15:41Like insanely lot.
15:42Because so many people were sent up to the war, all the food supplies were sent to the war zone.
15:46Right?
15:46And people here like had problems with starving.
15:51His grandparents had 11 children.
15:53And because it was during the war times, 7 of them died out of starvation.
15:57The only way to get some food was like fishing, right?
16:00And they would listen like if he's carrying any fish or something and they were like no fish, no fish,
16:05no fish.
16:05So, 7 of them died out of starvation.
16:082 of them died in the war zone.
16:10They went to the war zone and died.
16:12And only one of them, his mother, remained alive.
16:16Like out of the 11 children, they had their parents.
16:18In the past, food scarcity combined with extreme cold created a deadly reality.
16:23And out of pure necessity, people began preparing unusual dishes.
16:28Things most people wouldn't normally think of eating.
16:34This is actually the nose of a moose.
16:37And in a culture shaped by survival, nearly every part of an animal is seen as valuable and used for
16:42food.
16:43Yeah? I try?
16:44Yeah.
16:45But it's way too chewy, I'm telling you.
16:50I don't wanna insult him, but it's like free.
16:56I prefer to eat like just a normal meal.
16:58And as if this wasn't enough, I even ended up trying a piece of bone.
17:03Specifically, bone marrow.
17:05Which is found inside the bone and is said to be highly nutritious.
17:09These people really make use of every part of the animal, wasting absolutely nothing.
17:14It doesn't taste like anything.
17:16It's just nothing.
17:21Right now, we're going to the guy who lives 40 years alone in this cold.
17:26We've brought 30 liters of extra fuel and we are gonna drive on a frozen lake.
17:31We've covered around 1800 kilometers from our starting point.
17:35And trust me, after sitting that long, you really start to feel it in your ass.
17:38And just 15 minutes into the drive, we spot something unusual in the middle of the lake.
17:43A hole in the ice.
17:44Open water formed by immense pressure from below.
17:47And this in temperatures around minus 50 degrees.
17:50These openings are known as polyneas.
17:52The water doesn't freeze here and because of the extreme temperature difference, it even starts to steam.
17:57But as remarkable as it looks, it's extremely dangerous.
18:00We're driving for hours across this frozen surface and if you get too close to one of these openings,
18:05the ice can break and you'll fall straight through.
18:18Any update?
18:20No, we're trying to find who lives up here.
18:22Just read the signs.
18:24We do have the last name of the guy.
18:26Yeah.
18:26But the rest of the initials does not match.
18:29But everything else matches.
18:31The guy said there will be a difficult slope.
18:33He said I will repair a garage in the garage.
18:36So everything else matches.
18:38Except there's no guy.
18:41Okay, so you have to keep this in mind.
18:43We're stranded in the middle of nowhere and the car needs to be turned on 24-7.
18:47So right now, we're feeling the pressure.
18:49We're deep out here in this remote area with a limited amount of fuel.
18:53And it's slowly starting to get dark.
18:55And if we don't find this man tonight, things could quickly become really dangerous for us.
19:00So we even sent up the drone scanning for small plumes of smoke.
19:04Which is of course a sign of heat and life.
19:06I don't think there is a chimney.
19:09Like you cannot see the cloud.
19:10And just to put things into perspective, it's minus 50 degrees out here.
19:15So cold that even my drone eventually stopped working.
19:18So we drove back as far as we had to until we got just a bit of signal again.
19:22And then on the very last bar of reception, this came through.
19:34Oh yes, it's an abandoned village here.
19:39You see it's very big and here live this person alone here.
19:50Frank, nice to meet you bro.
19:53Hi, Niederlande.
19:56Niederlande.
19:58Niederlande.
20:00What is it?
20:01What is it?
20:02Frank.
20:03Before we could go inside, we first had to park the car in a heated garage.
20:08Otherwise, it simply wouldn't survive the cold.
20:10Holy...
20:16You were on local TV.
20:17Me?
20:18Yeah.
20:19I was on local TV?
20:20On the TV of this region.
20:22Why?
20:23I saw it on the TV.
20:24Really?
20:25What?
20:28I'm just a guy from the Netherlands.
20:29He said it was similar to the arrival of the president.
20:33For how many years is he living here alone?
20:36What?
20:37This is in the village.
20:40This is in the village.
20:43His entire life here.
20:44In the village?
20:46I live here, yeah?
20:48I live here.
20:48I live here.
20:49He was born here.
20:50Yeah.
20:51He's been living here.
20:52But for the past 40 years, he's the only one who's been spending winters here alone.
20:59All his family is buried here.
21:01Whenever he goes to Soontar or somewhere, to stay there, he cannot be there for long.
21:05because every night he has dreams of his relatives saying to him go back home
21:10I come here and like that's why he keeps coming he cannot live there
21:14peacefully because every night he has dreams of his gone relatives telling him
21:20to come back here actually has a wife oh wish yeah but she doesn't want to live
21:34I'm really interested in your gun and how you shoot with it and stuff like which
21:39gun do you use and which like bullet he will let you shoot with a gun tomorrow morning
21:46oh really yeah so tomorrow we're heading out on a hunt with him and I might even get the
21:52chance to shoot with his rivals but for now we're preparing the snowmobile in his garage
21:58to make sure everything runs smoothly tomorrow we start by adjusting the fuel
22:02mixing in a bit of oil so it performs better in minus 50 degrees it helps
22:06prevent starting issues then we seal off the front with insulation foil so the
22:11inside of the snowmobile doesn't freeze and get damaged
22:14he says not even like experienced hunters want to come to this place at this time
22:19of the year in this season and the random guy from the Netherlands decided to do
22:24that which is thank you for and that's why he shook your hand
22:28you're really brave well I just said in the car I just waited but okay but it's a
22:33lot of sitting in the car yeah he says be like very cautious to cover
22:41everything you have because tomorrow is a cold day yeah and don't worry how cold
22:51all right we're gonna hunt in like one or two hours in minus 50 as you can see
22:57behind me what am I gonna do with my life luckily we do have a walkie-talkie
23:04system because out here in this remote area there's no phone signal at all okay so
23:08I'm putting on every layer I have because with the wind it feels twice as cold from
23:12minus 50 down to minus 100 degrees purely because of the wind
23:20it says when you're on a snowmobile the feeling of the temperature doubles
23:26therefore if it's negative 40 tomorrow like when you're in a snowmobile it might
23:30feel like negative 80 so you have to really really dress up
23:33today we're using traps I spotted yesterday in the garage we are going to
23:46check about six of them and hopefully one of them has caught something maybe
23:49even a wall
24:07it's constantly freezing the hunter places traps exactly along the paths
24:13wolves usually take then he covers it with a little bit of snow making it look
24:18like nothing was ever there and after a few days you come back and this is what
24:23you could find
24:29people here don't use these straps without a reason because hunting in the
24:32wintertime is extremely dangerous because if you get lost or your snow
24:36mobile breaks down you could easily freeze to death so instead they set traps
24:41around their area a more passive but safer way to secure food they use this
24:47weapon for hunting mooses bears wolves like for really big dangerous animals
24:54where you cannot fuck up that's why you need a fucking rifle for it and not like a
24:58handgun or for a moment I honestly thought I had gone death that's how loud the military
25:17great weapon is we're now standing in one of the 20 abandoned houses in this village a
25:22place where members of his family once lived
25:25it was a brother of his dad so his uncle and of course the ones that he keeps dreaming about
25:34making him live here for 40 years alone already how many people have died because of the cult that
25:40he knows personally his mother's brother had a child when he returned from the
25:49army there wasn't a connection so they didn't know he was coming that day so he
25:54came and the door was locked and he died out of cold right in front of that door
26:00that's fucked up holy shit that that's like reality here if you cannot go inside and warm
26:05you're dead yeah in a big city it wouldn't be a problem and modern world it wouldn't be a
26:11problem and I guess this is how the journey ends with one clear realization just how unforgiving the
26:17cult truly is especially in remote places like this at the same time it's fascinating to see that
26:23even in the most remote corners earth humans always find a way to survive
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