Yakutsk
It is the capital of the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic (formerly the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic), Russia and a major port on the Lena River. It is served by Yakutsk Airport as well as the smaller Magan Airport.
Population: 210,642 (2002 Census); 186,626 (1989 Census).
History
Yakutsk was founded in 1632 as a Cossack fort but did not grow into a city until the discovery of large reserves of gold and other minerals in the 1880s and 1890s. The rapid growth of forced labour camps in Siberia also encouraged Yakutsk's development.
Commerce and Schools
Yakutsk is a destination of Lena Highway.
Actually, the city's connection to the Highway is only accessible by ferry in the summer, or in the dead of winter, directly over the frozen Lena River, as Yakutsk lies entirely on its western bank, and there is no bridge anywhere in the Sakha Republic that crosses the mighty Lena. The river is impassable for long periods of the year when it is full of loose ice, or when the ice cover is not sufficiently thick to support traffic, or when the water level is high and the river turbulent with spring flooding.
So the Highway actually ends on the eastern bank of Lena in Nizhny Bestyakh (Нижний Бестях), an urban-type settlement of some 4 thousand people. Additionally, Yakutsk is connected with Magadan in the Russian Far East by the Kolyma Highway.
The coldest temperatures ever recorded outside Antarctica occur in the basin of the Yana River to the northeast.