Yakutia, one of the largest republics of the Russian Federation with the area of about 1.2 million square miles, is one-sixth the size of Russia. It lies in the northeastern part of Asia, stretching 1,250 miles north-south and 1,550 miles east-west. More than 40 % of territory of Republic is situated beyond Polar Circle.

In 1632 Russian Cossacks established fort on the right bank of the Lena River, from which the latter-day Yakutsk, the modern capital of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), originated. This date is considered to mark the incorporation of Yakutia into the Russian State. On April 27, 1922, Yakutia was granted the status of the autonomous republic and exactly in 70 years the Constitution of the sovereign Republic of Sakha with the President government within the unified Russian State came into force. On September 27, 1990, the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) was signed. According to the Republic’s Constitution, the Republic of Sakha is sovereign, democratic, law-governed state within the Russian Federation but it has its own government and parliament.

The industrial complex is highly dependent on mineral exploitation: almost all territorial-production units are oriented first and foremost towards the exploitation of much-needed mineral raw materials. Specializing in diamond deliveries, the Republic has earned the reputation of the major producer with invaluable experience in diamond mining and extracting.

Today the population of the Republic exceeds 1 million. Two-thirds of Yakuts live in 11 cities and 69 worker townships, one-third lives in rural villages. People of over 80 nationalities live in the Republic, with the largest proportion being the Russians, who make up half the population, followed by the Sakha-Yakuts, who constitute 33 percent. Foremost among the remaining nationalities are Ukrainians, Tatars, Evenks, Belorussians, Evens, Buryats, and Yukaghirs.

Yakutia is full of natural contrasts: it has the longest and coldest winter, it has the place called “the coldest region of the world,” where in January the temperature can fall to minus 95°F. In western Yakutia the scientists discovered the most massive layer of permafrost with a depth of 5000 feet. At the same time the summer can be extremely hot with the temperature reaching +100°F.

Yakutia is the land of countless rivers and lakes, hundreds of glaciers and ice crusts. The Lena River, noted for its scenic beauty, is the pride of Yakutia and one of the ten largest rivers of the world. Taiga covers 72% of the Republic’s area, and the rest of the territory is tundra and forest-tundra. Yakutia is home to different species of animals.

The capital of the Sakha Republic is Yakutsk. The city was founded 1632 by Russian Cossacks, and situated at beauty Tuymaada valley. The current population of the city is 250 thousand people.

RED STAR TRAVEL invites you to visit Yakutia, one of the most stable regions in Russia - both in social and economy life. Low crime rates, friendly attitude to any visitors make this unique land attractive for guests at any time - not depending on global political crisis!

TYGYN DARKHAN HOTEL

Located in the very city center, close to the administrative and business areas of Yakutsk. Walking distance to the Folklore Museum of Yakutian people and the Center of Diamonds and Precious Stones. 3 miles to the airport. Opened in 1982. Totally renovated in 1996. 6 floors. All floors accessible by elevator. 74 cozy and comfortable rooms: 9 standard singles, 31 upgraded singles, 30 junior suites, 4 main suites. All rooms feature private bathroom, hair-dryer, color satellite TV, international direct-dial telephone, radio, mini-bar. Suites are additionally equipped with refrigerator and tea-maker. 24-h room service. Tygyn Darkhan Restaurant for 57 seats (National, Russian, and European cuisine). Bar for 18 seats. Banquet hall for 70 seats. Business center: facsimile and photocopying facilities, computer services. Service bureau. 2 conference rooms for 38 and 48 seats. Health club: swimming pool, sauna, solarium, gym. Billiards room. Hair salon. Currency exchange. Gift shop. Laundry. Security service. English-speaking staff.  Room rates - from $55.

STERKH HOTEL

Located in the city center, within walking distance to the National Drama Theater, the Museum of Regional Studies, and the Central Post Office. 2 miles to the airport. Built in 1961. Totally renovated in 1992. 3 floors. 45 rooms. 20 rooms offered by Red Star Travel feature private bathroom, color TV, international direct-dial telephone. Junior suites are additionally equipped with refrigerator. Room service. 2 coffee shops for 24 and 28 seats. Facsimile and photocopying facilities. Beauty shop. Safety deposit box. Laundry. On-site parking. Security service. English-speaking staff. Room rates - from $44.

Yakutsk Museums

Yemelyan Yaroslavsky State United Museum of History and Culture of Northern People. Operating hours: from 10am to 5pm, closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. One of the oldest and most interesting museums in Siberia and the Russian Far East. Founded more than 100 years ago, the museum has over 100 thousand unique exhibits devoted to the history and original culture of the native northern people and ethnic groups. The exhibition presents Yakutian Nature and pre-Revolutionary history of the region, too. On display are the full mammoth’ skeleton found in 1970 on the bank of the Tirekhtyakh River, stuffed rarest birds nesting in the Northern Yakutia - sterkh and rose sea-gull, ancient ethnographic things – koumiss’s crockery, silver adornments, hunting rifle, instruments, clothes of Yakutian shamans and their attributes.

Folklore Museum of Yakutian People. Operating hours: from 10am to 5pm, closed on Sundays and Mondays. The museum contains various samples of folk and professional music culture. Its collections are displayed in seven exhibition halls, each dedicated to a different aspect of Yakutian folklore: “Music ethnography of Yakutian people,” “Folklore of the Northern people,” “Folk musical instruments,” “Yakutian Singers,” “Variety and Circus Arts,” “Musical culture of Yakutia,” and “Researchers and collectors of Yakutian folklore.” The museum has a gramophone record library, which keeps the records of folk songs (the so-called Olonkho) and a lot of classic music works.

National Fine Arts Museum. Operating hours: from 10am to 5:30pm. Opened in 1946, the museum has over 10,000 exhibits, including paintings, drawings, items of applied art. On display are works of the Russian painters of 18th-20th centuries, paintings of local artists and a small collection of the Eastern Art. The museum contains works of the West-European artists presented to the museum by Prof. M.Gabyshev. The pride of the museum is the collection of the carved bones made by Yakutian and Russian foremen in the 19th-20th centuries.

Museum of Mammoth. Opening hours: from 9am to 4pm, closed on Saturdays and Sundays. This Museum belongs to the Institute of Applied Ecology. Here you can explore the unique exhibits of the well-preserved remnants of the pre-historical giant animals that are about 40 thousand years old. The pictures of the Berelekh Cemetery, were found the remnants of 150 mammoths, are exhibited throughout the year.

Geology Museum. Operating hours: from 8:30am to 5pm, closed on Saturdays and Sundays. Established in 1958 as a part of the Geology Institute. Exhibition of ore-mineral section presents variety and wealth of mineral resources in Yakutia. The following causes are of special interest: collection of rocks and minerals of unprecedented layer of the rarest jewelry stone Charoit, the so-called “Lilac-colored stone.” The Collection “Gold of Yakutia” where nuggets of deposit gold exhibit, collection of layers from which famous Yakutian diamonds are got. The collection of diamonds presents natural and synthetic diamonds, jewelry and technical, octahedronical and cubic, pure and colored etc. Visitors can learn about the special possibilities of the thermo-chemical treatment of diamonds that was worked up in the institute. The example of this method is the Picasso lithography, carved on the diamond’s side. Museum rarities are the full skeleton of wooly two-horn rhinoceros with remains of soft tissues, skin and wool; viscera and skin of mammoth, and also leg in full safety found on the site of ancient human.

Underground laboratory of the Permafrost Institute. Operating hours: from 8am to 4pm, closed on Saturdays and Sundays. This unique laboratory is located under the building of the Permafrost Institute where the temperature remains constant at around 25°F. You will take an opportunity to go down underrate to see frost rocks whose age is 10 thousand years. You will find out many interesting facts: how people here adapt themselves for living in these hard conditions, how they build houses and engineering objects on Extreme North. Remains of ancient flora can be seen here: moss bushes and tree trunks aged thousands of years. Also you can see a copy of the famous mammoth baby “Dima,” which is 39 thousand years old.

Center of Diamonds and Precious Stones. Opening hours: from 9am to 6pm, closed on Saturdays and Sundays. The Republic of Sakha is a land of the numerous precious stones and metals. Nothing can equal the magnificent lights of the rich variety of gemstones, which are concentrated in this museum.

Yakutsk City Tour

Yakutsk, the capital city of the Sakha Republic, is the ideal start-point to discover many wonders of Yakutia. The capital city is home to 300 thousand people who enjoy its calm lifestyle. The town consists of two faces, one is “Old Town” and other is “New Town”. It will give you the opportunity to value the beauty and primitive style of “Old Town” and the contemporaneity of “New Town”. During city tour you will get acquainted with the history of Yakutsk, will see sights and memorial places and discover 369 years of the history of Yakutsk.

Territory of the Regional Natural History Museum. The first East Yakut tower built by Pioneers-Cossacks is situated on the territory of the museum. Earlier in the history it served as the gates to Yakutsk. There is a legend saying that once Tygyn lived there, who was all lands’ czar at that time. Cossacks addressed him asking to give them a piece of land in order to build the habitations for the first settlers. Tygyn decided to mock at them by giving a bull’s skin and saying that they might build only on the piece of land that the skin could cover. Cossacks took the bull’s skin, cut it into the thin ropes and tied those ropes round the big territory. Later eight towers were built on this territory. After that Tygyn realized that Cossacks were very clever and he decided to reconcile to them.

River Port. The Lena River is one of the main gates to Yakutia. The Lena River is the main means of transportation in Yakutia as there are no railways here and transportation by the means of airways is rather expensive. Lena supplies cargo (foodstuffs and other goods) which aids the North people to survive during very long winters. Navigation usually opens in June and in October and within that period river transport workers should deliver all necessary goods. That’s why the Lena River is very important for the Republic of Sakha.

Shergin’s shaft. Shergin was the person who decided to obtain water by digging up a shaft and with the view of it began to dig a shaft. He was digging it up within a period of 6 years, but could not find any water. He was about to give it up, but the explorers of the permafrost came up to him with a suggestion to continue the process out of the scientific interest. All in all the whole process took more then 10 years. Today the depth of the shaft is 374 feet. One peculiar thing about the work done is that it could only have place in winter. In summer walls crumbled and the air in the shaft was getting very hot, making it impossible for the workers to breeze. Nowadays the shaft is mainly used for scientific tests and that is why it is closed for public visits.

Institute of Permafrost. The Institute of Permafrost is the only one of this kind in Russia. There are only few such institutes over the world. 300 people work here, and they all are engaged in researches. The institute is well known for its shaft, the depth of which is 66 feet. The channel of the ten thousand-year-old river laid earlier at this place. The mine has several levels with the purpose of each being to balance the temperature on the surface and deep underground. The temperature in the depth is constant at 25F irrespective of the temperature on the surface. This mine is also remarkable that it contains a copy of little mammoth Dima - the fully preserved mammoth, which was found frozen on the left bank of the Lena River. Also one can see boles of trees, the age of which are over than 10 thousand years.

Nikolsky Church. This church was built before the revolution of 1917 on the donation of reach people. There were eight Orthodox churches in Yakutsk at that time. After the revolution this church was earmarked for a book archive. It was fully reconstructed in 1997. At present it is sole Orthodox Church in Yakutsk.

Friendship Square. At first the Yakut stockade was located at this square, later - the first building made of stone in Yakutsk. Also this square is remarkable for being a center of art and science. The Theatre of Opera and Ballet, the Institute of Geology, the Institute of Biology, the North Institute of Mining, the Institute of Outer Space Physic, the Institute of Regional Economics, the Institute of the Humanities, the Academy of Science of Yakutia, and the University campus are also nearly located.

We suggest you to visit “Kudai Bakhsy,” “Sardaana,” “Sakhabult” souvenir shops, where you can buy traditional Yalutian souvenirs made from mammoth’ tusk – chess, knives, amulets, women’s fur hats and coasts, and national footwear.

Visit to Yakut family, 3 hours

You will plunge into the atmosphere of a Yakut house, a typical native dwelling in a pine tree forest near Yakutsk. Your hosts will show you their house and yard, and demonstrate you the traditional construction techniques of Yakutian dwelling. Then you will see the ancient Yakut ceremony – The Fire Spirit Feeding, examine traditional Yakutian crafts and clothing., and taste delicious and exotic Yakut food.

Tour of Bakaldyn Cultural-Ethnographic Complex, 4 hours

If you are interested in the life of natives of Siberia - this trip is for you. You will have a great opportunity to enjoy the landscape of the taiga river Kenkeme and to have an interesting excursion around the ethnographic complex. Here you will see traditional dwellings of Evenks - from Stone Age to recent past, will be amazed by ancient epic stories, and will take part in old ceremonies, national games and contests. You will familiarize with the culture, the life style and the history of the one of the ancient Siberian nationalities - the Evenks. The Evenks live scattered allover the area of Russian Siberia from Ural Mountains to Sakhalin. After many centuries the Evenks have managed to keep safe their original culture and philosophy. Nowadays the Evenks live in severe nomadic conditions occupying with hunting and reindeer breeding.

Tour along Lena River with Visit to Open-Air Architectural Museum “Druzhba,” 7 hours

Located 45 miles away from the city, the reserve-museum can be reached by hydrofoil in the summer time. During your vessel trip along the mighty Lena River you will see nature of Sottintzy, a magic place on the bank of the Lena River, where in 1632 Russian explorers built the first ostrog. You can see here the reconstructed Spaso-Zashiverskaya church of 17th century, monuments of the Northern-Russian architecture, various Yakutian dwellings, a windmill, etc. More than 20 architectural present material and spiritual culture of Yakutian people.

Tour along Lena River with Visit to Buluus Glacier Lake, 5 hours

Visit to “Buluus” Glacier Lake will give your the most exciting experience in Yakutia. Under a vast open sky, when the temperature soars to plus 95 degrees Fahrenheit, you will see the lake of ice. For many visitors, a walk on this lake is the experience of a lifetime.