fog and frost

These pictures were taken in Yakutsk in late December, just after the winter solstice; the temperature that day was -53C. The frosts were heavy, each tree branch encrusted in crystals leaving it twice the size of its skeleton; each serge (hitching post) and carved tree-person (see above) and cemetery cross (see below) was thickly gilded in white.

I hadn't seen the sun since the first of the month, and as the days shortened to four hours of daylight, it seemed the world had turned into the inside of a dark deep-freezer in someone's basement: night was an eerie blue-black colour, shot through with the amber of streetlights, and you could only tell it was daytime by the slight softening of the fog's blue hue, as if someone had briefly opened up the deep-freeze to rummage around a bit, and then shut the lid again.

The photo above was taken at about 3pm, just before sunset, on Prospekt Lenina, the main street of town. Car headlights were on constantly, though in the night-fog were nearly invisible until just a few feet away. I was apprehensive crossing some of the less-used streets, lest I miss a ghost-car emerging too late, but soon learned to rely on aural cues, listening more carefully for the sound of the muffled engines and the creaky protest of tires on dry snow.

Grand Christmas trees stood in the main squares, surrounded by half-lit ice sculptures of Sakha animals, though they were difficult to see unless you got within a few feet of them. They could disappear completely except for the faint suggestions of light, blurred like afterblinks or migraine scotomas. All the light seemed muted and drowsy in the fog, as if it were emerging from a very deep sleep.

In front of the government building stood Lenin, looking even more forlorn than usual as he reached out his hand to grasp at the nothingness of the fog, the cold breath of D'yl Oghuha, the frost-bull meeting his outstretched arms.

It's February now, and according to the story, one of the bull-horns has melted and thus spring is slowly moving in. When I arrived back in Yakutsk about two weeks ago, I was overjoyed to see the sun peering tentatively through the frost. We then had a glorious week of -30C, complete with actual blue skies, before the temperature and the fog descended once again. It seems a little more depressing this time, even though the lengthening days have made the light-blue hours a little longer than the black ones. At night, though, with the clouds obscuring all but the nearest buildings, it still feels like being in the deep-freeze, or perhaps underwater in a winter lake, as we move like stunned fish struggling to shake ourselves from hibernation. It is really no wonder to me that people here still worship the sun.