The Eastern Corner of Siberia Is the Coldest Inhabited Place on Earth | Hacker News Reader

The Eastern Corner of Siberia Is the Coldest Inhabited Place on Earth

earther.com

53 pointscurtis17 comments

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> Why people live there is a whole other story.

As one might guess, Oymyakon was a gulag :(

The fact people live in Siberia is proof people can live on Mars. All Elon needs to do is build the gulags.

As featured in Richard Morgan's Black Man aka 13. And upcoming Thin Air.

Siberia may be cold and inhospitable, but by most accounts it has oxygen.

Also, your blood won't boil and eyes won't pop put when exposed to the atmosphere directly. Also, no bone/vision problems due to one third of Earth gravity. Also, abundant water without sulphuric contaminants. Also, good protection against solar and interstellar radiation.

How does low gravity affect vision?

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experime...

This link is not exactly about low gravity (it's about zero gravity effects), but it might be reasonable to assume that the same mechanism may work in low gravity too.

Are you one of those liberals who thinks gulags should also supply oxygen?

I think it's ridiculous that the author poses the question of why anyone would want to live there and then immediately waves it off with "it's a whole other story". So, thanks for sharing at least one detail about why anyone lives there.

There's also a very verbose description of the geographical context of this place... and no map.

It's like the author ran out of time and just submitted the article without changing anything.

It’s clickbait garbage. The headline is meant to spread virally and the content is an afterthought.

And thanks for adding the unspoken context that I neglected to include. Thinking that people can read my mind is a key weakness.

Apparently there aren't many jobs... but there is some tourism and I guess if you are born there you might stick around?

http://www.amusingplanet.com/2012/05/oymyakon-coldest-inhabi...

Back in the day, post gulag, stipends were greater for those living in places like this. To encourage people to live there. For strategic reasons. But I don't know whether that continues now.

> Cars cannot be started without lighting a bonfire beneath the fuel tank.

Not under fuel tank, I think, unless diesel fueled. But definitely under crankcase. And not "bonfire", I think. More like hot coals. I used to do that, living in places where -40 C wasn't uncommon.

I was flying once with the then-head of CNN in Russia who married a Russian woman.

She was from such a super cold region and they visited her family several times, also during winter. He mentioned that no matter the temperature, they always had boiling hot water in taps and that, looking at the state of the pulling and overall heating centrals, he never understood how they managed this. This boiling hot water extravagance in these cold coats was something a Russian from Moscow also find le about, so it is probably a thing.

From the article: 'local residents reported temperatures as low as minus-88 degrees Fahrenheit' I hardly think so, as people from the USA are the only ones using Fahrenheit in the world.

Talk about nitpicking, the article is likely from a US publication and they put the value as their main readership expects it.

I understand that, but it is a lie. They should have said 'local residents reported temperatures as low as minus-66 degrees Celsius (-88F)' and everybody will understand, don't you think?

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