Tag Archives: Siberia

May 10

Baby, it’s cold outside: evocative documentary photography at -35°C

Temperatures fall sharply the Nenets may spend days in the same place

The Nenets — who live at daily temperatures of -35°C (-31°F) in northern Siberia, wash just once a year and eat raw reindeer liver to survive — are documented in beautiful black and white monochrome photographs made by photographer Sebastião Salgado, possibly the best-loved photojournalist in the world.

Reviewer Laura Cummings says of his subjects:

These people endure the coldest temperatures imaginable. They stand like statues, apparently frozen still, positioned against the snowbound winds that drive the snow across the picture in silvery blizzards. They stand, and they withstand.

(And mainland Australians think my island home of Tasmania is cold!)

More images from this remarkable series follow…

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Apr 7

Shards of turquoise ice jut out of the world’s largest lake

image by Alexey Trofimov

Lake Baikal, located in the southern part of eastern Siberia in Russia, is an incredible natural wonder of the world that one can only hope to visit at least once in their lifetime. It’s not just the oldest freshwater lake on Earth, at 20 to 25 million years old, it’s also one of the largest and deepest, holding an astounding one-fifth of the world’s freshwater.

From January to May, the lake freezes over but the water is so clear that, from the surface, you can see an astonishing 130 feet below you.

A photograph worthy natural phenomenon occurs each March, when wind, temperature differences, frost and sun in the ice crust cause cracks and ice hummocks to form.

Transparent and shining in a turquoise color, these masses of broken ice look like shards of glass rising into the sky. They are caused by the slow and unequal pressure in the main body of the packed ice as well as by the unequal structure and temperature. Now that’s one for the bucket list!

See below for more stunning images from this unique location…

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