Perhaps after seeing the few photos in the last post, you believed that Yakutsk was a metropolis consisting solely of monolithic Soviet apartment cubes (which, though not always terribly architecturally exciting, are awfully sturdy). However, this is not the case! Throughout the city, right up beside the concrete complexes are clusters (and even whole neighbourhoods) of these wonderful traditional Siberian wooden houses. 
Some may appear a bit decrepit, but they are deceptively tough-looking structures. Some are abandoned, but many are still inhabited. I peeked into some of the beautiful big windows as I wandered past, and found them full of ornaments and houseplants welcoming the waning sun. From what I've been able to learn, the foundations are built of Siberian larch (tamarack) which is strong & firm even when wet, and the walls are made of pine, which retains heat the best, so even in the harsh climate and the local permafrost issue, these buildings have stayed relatively intact for nearly 100 years in some cases.
These houses are decorated according to patterns popular across Siberia and the Russian Far East. I am in love with their wide sun-beckoning windows, and especially the carved windowframes and eaves. The symbols here are a mixture of Baroque designs and motifs from both Russian and local Siberian folklore, the latter of which are carefully engraved along the eaves and above doorways and around windows to prevent evil spirits and ill intentions from entering the home.
Most of the houses in Yakutsk are dark brown, but some have painted detailing around the windows. Across Siberia, green is the colour of youthfulness and long life, and blue is the colour of hope. White is purification, and is the most sacred colour for Sakha people, along with blue, the colour of the sky. (The Sakha flag has all of these colours on it, plus red).
The shadows of tall grasses against brightly painted shutters in the autumn light makes me feel awfully cozy... I've not been inside one yet, but I like to daydream about what the warm late afternoon glow would look like spreading across the wooden floors.
This house here has kept its vibrant turquoise paint, and has recently added some sort of satellite device-thing to its roof. I love the contrast of it standing firm in the shadow of a giant power transformer, with its ancient designs of sun rays extending across its gables (life, happiness, the beginnings of all good things).
More houses, further down along the street from where I am living (in a cozy, but massive dormitory block). I love the lattice work showing from behind the white plaster coat (most do not have the white layer, but show the dark wood.
Above is the same house again, with windows and willows on September afternoon. I just find them tremendously charming. (Someday I want to live in a yurt, but I think my winter house should be like one of these!) I hope that sometime I will get to go to Irkutsk, for that city is full of these sorts of houses, and you should go see this magical gallery of them here. 
Maybe I'm over-romanticizing them a bit, but I am just mesmerized by the light and the presence of these homes; they are ornate, yet so unpretentious, and just so very very Siberian in their aesthetic and resilience. The ones here in Yakutsk make me think of balaghans (traditional Sakha houses -- pictures soon) mixed with the fairytale houses in the illustrations of Ivan Bilibin.
But yes -- they just have this quiet persistence. Every year the frozen ground beneath them tenses and buckles, and the roadsides seethe with mud and melt before falling rigid again, icy and asleep for the winter. The temperature drops to -50C and the wooden beams creak and crack, then unfurl their warped fibres in spring. But the walls stay up and people stay warm and protected. The Lena River surges during the melt, creeping in miles towards town, threatening to encroach on even the toughest of Stalinesque structures and wash the city back into the taiga. But the little houses are still here despite the snow and the cold and the river, despite the cranes standing tall above them, pecking and lifting up blocks to build more square grey apartment-forests around them.
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