Living Alone as a Woman in the Coldest Place on Earth (−71°C, −95°F) Yakutia

It's early Saturday morning in a small village deep in Siberia. Outside, the temperature has dropped to minus 58 degrees. Alina wakes up early because the house is getting cold. At minus 58, sleep is a luxury she can't afford for too long. Inside the wooden house, the air is freezing. The thermometer on the wall reads only four degrees. Alina must quickly add wood to the stove. If the fire weakens, the house begins to freeze. Alina is 22 years old. She moved here from Yakutsk after finding a job at the local cultural center where she helps organize village events. She had been looking for work but finding a job in the city can be very competitive. In remote villages, positions can come with better pay and even housing to encourage young people to move. That's why Alina now lives here alone. In a place where temperatures can fall to minus 70 degrees, living alone as a woman is not easy and not always safe. Everything depends on the wood-burning stove, which must be kept burning all the time. The stove heats water that flows through pipes and radiators. If the temperature drops too low, the water can freeze, expands and cracks the pipes. If the pipes break, the heating system has to be drained before it can be repaired. But if the water inside has already frozen solid, it's almost impossible to drain it properly. Without heat, the house can freeze even more. So people are forced to leave their homes and wait until summer when temperatures rise enough to allow proper repairs. That's why keeping the stove burning and the house warm is so important. Life in the village is full of hard work. For Alina it's all new. She grew up in the city of Yakutsk, where she had central heating and hot water just by turning it up. She didn't have to worry about how a house stays warm. Alina is slowly adapting to the rhythm of the village life and she knows that here you cannot be lazy. Since there is no centralized water system in the village, Alina does not have running water. Instead, she has ice blocks stacked outside. In remote settlements like this, installing and maintaining insulated heated pipes is expensive and difficult in extreme temperatures. Getting ice from the frozen river is a very heavy and difficult job. This is where the community comes together. In the village, neighbors always help each other. There are local men who go to the river to cut the thick ice into large blocks. They make sure to share these blocks with elderly people and the women like Alina who cannot go to the river and get the heavy ice by themselves. This kindness is what makes life possible here. After finishing her morning routine, Alina takes a few minutes for herself. Because the stove is constantly burning, the air inside the house becomes very dry. Alina has to moisturize her skin every morning and night to prevent it from cracking. By now, the temperature indoors has finally risen to around 16 degrees and the space begins to feel warm. Today is a Saturday, a weekend day for Alina. While she doesn't have to work today, her work at home never stops. In Yakutia, people pay a lot of attention to keeping their homes clean. Alina takes the sofa covers outside in the freezing air, she doesn't have a vacuum cleaner, so she uses a stick to beat the fabric. In Alina's house, there is a large carpet hanging on the wall. In many parts of the former Soviet Union, wall carpets were once a very common part of home interiors. During the Soviet era, hanging a thick carpet on the wall was a symbol of comfort and wealth. But it was also practical, these thick carpets also helped insulate the room and keep the house warmer. The windows are designed for the cold as well. Many homes have double window frames with the space between them sealed with cotton wool to block drafts and keep the freezing air outside. In such extreme temperatures, every layer of insulation matters. Once the house is clean and the morning chores are done, Alina's first priority is the stove again. The fire has already burned through the first few logs. To keep a wooden house at a stable warm temperature, she cannot let the flames get low. After the stove is burning well, it's time for breakfast. Alina takes bread she has in stock. In the deep cold, it's frozen solid. To eat it, she brings it inside and leaves it on top of the stove until it slowly softens. In a traditional Yakutian wooden house, the stove is the heart of the home. It heats the rooms and also serves as a stove for cooking. Alina cracks a few eggs into a pan and prepares a simple warm breakfast. Finally, breakfast is ready. Even after being near the heat, the bread is still difficult to chop and Alina has to use a heavy knife with a lot of force. As Alina sits down to eat her eggs and warm bread, she opens lingua pie on her phone and puts on a Spanish movie. Living in this remote village, she's found her own way to stay connected to the wider world while learning the language she has always wanted to speak. Watching her actually reminds me of my own language learning journey. I grew up obsessed with shows like Friends and How I Met Your Mother, but back then I had to pause every few seconds to translate every single word and it was so slow and so frustrating. Now I am using lingua pie to improve my Chinese and it's a complete game changer. The way it works is so simple. You just watch your favorite shows and if you hear a word you don't know, you can click on it, your translation appears instantly and it's saved automatically for you to review it later. I've also noticed that I'm remembering new words much faster because of their little games make reviewing vocabulary feel like not studying. What I also love is that it doesn't just improve your vocabulary and listening, it's also a great way to understand more about different culture through the real shows. If you want to understand your favorite international show without subtitles or you want to learn a new language, this might be your sign. There is a link below for a 7-day free trial and it also works for 12 different languages if Chinese or Spanish isn't your thing. Trust me, once you try it, you will love it. Now let's get back to Alina's story. After finishing her breakfast, Alina heads to the village grocery store. There are no delivery services here. If you need food, you must go and get it yourself no matter the weather. There is only one store in the entire village and for Alina it's a 15-minute walk from her house. As she makes her way down the snowy road, the cold slowly pushes through her layers of clothing. Alina is freezing but she has to be strong. She knows she must reach the shop. If she doesn't go, no one will bring food to her door. Inside, Alina buys the basics for the next few days. She spends about $40. Fresh produce is rare here. Fruits and vegetables are expensive because they must be flown in or transported over seasonal ice roads. Instead, most people rely on frozen, canned and long-lasting foods, staples that can survive the extreme cold. To celebrate her weekend, Alina decides to make a traditional sweet treat called angel wings. The crispy pastry is perfect for a cold day because it's high in energy and goes perfectly with hot tea. She mixes eggs with milk and adds a generous amount of condensed milk. After stirring everything together, she gradually adds flour, forming a firm, smooth dough. Next, she rolls out the dough. She cuts them into thin strips, making a small slit in the twisted wing shape. Since she has no electric stove, she uses the heat from the wood-burning stove to warm up the sunflower oil in a deep pan. One by one, she drops the pastries into the bubbling oil. They sizzle and puff up instantly, turning a beautiful golden brown. The house starts to smell wonderful, a mix of sweet dough and warm oil. In the middle of the frozen Siberian village, these small angel wings bring a sense of comfort and joy to Alina's quiet Saturday afternoon. After cooking, Alina still has more work to do. With no running water in the village, she cannot simply use a washing machine. Instead, she takes a large bucket outside and gathers fresh, clean snow. The snow is dry, almost like sand. She brings it inside and places buckets on top of the hot stove. It takes a large amount of snow to produce even a small amount of water, so she waits patiently, as it slowly melts and warms. Alina washes her clothes by hand in a large basin. It's hard work that requires a lot of scrubbing, but she is used to it. Once the clothes are clean, she does something that might seem strange to people living in warm climates. She takes the wet laundry outside. Even though it's far below freezing, Alina hangs her clothes on the line in the open air. In Yakutia, the moisture in the clothes freezes instantly, turning fabric into stiff icy boards. Alina loves drying her clothes outside because of their unique smell, a scent of pure arctic air that no laundry detergents can match. The work around the house is never done, Alina heads back outside with a shovel. In the village, the snow never stops piling up, and if she doesn't clear it, she will be trapped inside. The most important path is the one leading to the toilet. Because there are no pipes in the frozen ground, the toilet is a small wooden shed located far from the main house. Keeping this path clear is a top priority, Alina needs to make sure she can reach the toilet quickly, especially when she is in a rush. Using the toilet is perhaps the most difficult part living in the village. It's never a quick trip. For Alina, every time she needs to go, it becomes a big mission. She has to put on many layers, and it takes almost 5-10 minutes just to get dressed for a one-minute task. By the time she returns to the warmth of her house, Alina can finally rest and watch a local TV show. She sits down with a cup of hot tea and a pastry she made earlier. Her body is tired from the shoveling and the cold, but she feels a quiet sense of happiness. Here, surrounded by silence, snow and open sky, Alina has found a rare sense of calm. The work is constant, yet the rhythm of the village brings her peace, a kind she never felt in the city. The long day finally comes to end. After all the physical work, Alina is ready to sleep. In her wooden house, she has a large collection of books that were left by the owner. She chooses a book to read before bed, settling into the bed under the warm glow of the lamp. The house is silent except for the soft crackle of the wood-burning stove. In the village this remote, the silence is so deep it feels almost alive. As Alina turns a page, she suddenly stops. A strange sound breaks the stillness. Alina freezes, holding her breath. Is it just arctic wind catching the corner of the roof? Is it a stray animal looking for worms? Or is it something else? Living alone thousands of kilometers away from the nearest city, every unknown sound feels heavy with mystery. Alina decides not to dwell on it, she pulls the blanket closer, turns off the light and lets the darkness of the Yakutia night carry her into sleep.