Locals say that people and nature are most valuable in Salekhard. This Russian city in the middle of the endless tundra is one of the few in the Far North, where, despite the harsh climate, the population is growing from year to year.
Several Salekhard residents told Russia Beyond why they like life there so much.
“The only downside is the thermometer”
Andrei Sirovatski is in charge of public relations at a local company that supplies electricity to the city’s residents. He moved to Selahard in 2016 from Krasnodar – the warmest region of Russia. “I have relatives here – I had visited Yamal many times and I knew where I was coming from,” says Andrei. “I found ideal working and salary conditions here.”
Salekhard is the administrative center of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug and the third largest city in the region. The largest are Nov Urengoy and Noyabrsk – more than 100,000 people live in each. Most of their inhabitants work in the oil and gas sector (about 80% of all gas in Russia is produced in Yamal), and the inhabitants of the 50,000 Salekhard are engaged in reindeer husbandry (in the city about 10% of the local population is made up of indigenous peoples: Nenets , hants, commissioners), fishing and service activities.
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Salekhard has traditionally been on Russia’s list of the highest-paid cities thanks to climate and remoteness bonuses (in October 2020, it was third only to Moscow and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk). Certain benefits are also offered here – such as annual leave of up to 55 days instead of the standard 28, early retirement and relocation money.
“Everything is developing very fast in Salekhard, social support is good,” said Andrei. “I noticed that the local children left the city to study and then came back and took others with them.”
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Although the first settlement here, Obdor Fortress, dates back to the 16th century, Salekhard was built in Soviet times, taking into account the peculiarities of the northern climate: the buildings are on stilts to protect themselves from perpetual frost. In addition, there are virtually no gray facades – so the architects are trying to compensate for the lack of sunlight. In recent years, young artists have begun to arrive in Salekhard, decorating buildings with fabulous drawings of icebreakers, foxes and deer. By the way, even pine trees can be seen in the city – they were planted in the 1960s by young professionals who come here to develop the Far North. The trees have adapted perfectly to the conditions of the tundra, and this is very rare.
One of the favorite facilities of the locals is the 10-meter mammoth Mitya on the banks of the Ob, built in 2004. Mitya can rarely be seen “naked” – for every holiday he invents some interesting outfit. For the World Cup, he was wearing a football jersey and a protective mask in his pandemic. And for the New Year he turns into Santa Claus.
“In fact, the only downside for people here is the downside of the thermometer. Not everyone can live in such temperatures, but I even like this climate,” says Andrei. “In the south, it was harder for me to bear the humidity and the heat, and here it’s already -40 for a month, and then at -25 it seems to you that it’s not so cold anymore.”
Winters here are really severe: temperatures are between -30 and -50 and the city is shrouded in thick fog. The cold can last from autumn to spring and leave only at the end of May. Even in June, there is sometimes snow on the roads, although some residents say it has been even colder in the past.
“Currently, with each passing year, the city is getting better – the climate is different, even the winters are milder. And at -50, if there is no wind, it is not so cold,” said Nadezhda Terentieva. She was born into a family of reindeer herders in the neighboring town of Labitnangi and has lived in Salekhard since 1984. It is far more difficult for Nadezhda to endure the summer heat in the city.
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“The cold lives here long before people”
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Salekhard is the only city in the world located on the Arctic Circle – at 66 degrees 33 minutes and 39 seconds north latitude, which is reminiscent of a plaque with the inscription “66th parallel”.
This means that there is a polar day in the city when the sun does not hide from the horizon (it lasts throughout June), as well as incomplete polar nights (the sun seems to appear behind the horizon, but still remains dark).
“I read about it in detail before I moved, but things didn’t go that way at all,” said Maria Fedchenkova. “For the first two months, I slept constantly.” Maria is a neonatal resuscitator and treats the youngest children. She falls for the first time in the Far North at the end of 2019 – after intensive work in the hospital in Kaluga (Central Russia) is looking for a quieter place. That’s how it turns out in Salekhard. The cold does not scare her: good thermal underwear and valenki – the warmest shoes – come to her aid.
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According to Maria, it was the most difficult for her to get used to the polar days and nights. Her work schedule comes to the rescue: there are times when she has to spend a day and a half in the hospital, “so it didn’t really matter what was going on outside the window,” says Maria.
Another problem he faces is the prices of products. “Tomatoes for 500 rubles (5.60 euros) can be frozen or have a plastic taste,” says Maria. Prices here are three times higher than in Central Russia due to the distance of the city from other settlements and federal roads. There is only air transport in the town, and the nearest train station in the town of Labitnangi must be reached via the Ob River. In summer you travel by ship, and in winter – on ice. So far, no bridge has been built due to the complex structure of the riverbed. At the end of 2020, a year-round road to the town of Nadim with a length of 344 km was opened and grocery chains appeared in Salekhard for the first time.
On business, Maria flies to her patients from the county by air ambulance, including to treat nomads in the tundra. “The cold lives here long before people do,” says Maria. “And I wanted to get used to living in difficult conditions, to find wisdom and to become stronger. I like my experiences in this place.”
Tourism beyond the Arctic Circle
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The romance of the Far North attracts many tourists every year – before Kovid in 2019 out of 200,000 visitors, nearly 9,000 are foreigners. Many of them come for the biggest holiday – the Day of the reindeer herder. Yamal is not only the most important oil and gas region in Russia, but also a center of reindeer husbandry. Yamal residents say there are more deer here than humans. And this is the truth – 550,000 people have more than 700,000 deer.
Every spring, nomads arrive in Salekhard on beautifully decorated reindeer sleighs and entertain tourists. On this day in the city there are competitions in ancient sports, traditional dishes such as stroganina and venison are prepared, everyone can go for a sleigh ride with a deer or a snowmobile. Tourists can visit the tundra with the nomads to live in a deer skin tent and see how the reindeer herders live.
If they succeed, tourists can see some rare natural phenomena in Salekhard itself – such as the northern lights or halo, when three suns appear in the sky at the same time.
Many guests also come to see the remains of the unrealized Transpolar Highway project (“Project 501”). It was built by prisoners from the labor camp that existed on the outskirts of Salekhard from 1949 to 1954.
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