10 Places Humans Shouldn’t Be Able To Live (But Do)

If you're one of those people that just loves the winter, then why not take a trip to the coldest city on Earth?

Yakutsk is a city of around 200,000 people deep in Eastern Siberia that regularly experiences temperatures of around -45°C. The fur-wrapped locals will advise you against even wearing spectacles outside as the extreme temperatures will freeze them to your face, causing them to pull off chunks of flesh if you attempt to remove them.

In Yakutsk, a temperature of 40°C or so is considered to be "not too cold", the equivalent of a mildly rainy autumn day in the UK, and in 2007 the residents experienced something of a heatwave with temperatures never dropping below -25°C.

In 2008, a couple of burst pipes meant that the heating broke for a few days, leaving the locals to fend for themselves in the midst of a -50°C cold snap. It was a common joke During the Cold War that if the west ever wanted to subjugate Yakutsk, they wouldn't have to bother with a nuclear bomb, but just turn the heating off for a bit.

Yakutsk is the largest city in the world that is built on permafrost, and this is for a very good reason. Most people avoid building on this kind of terrain due to the fact that it is as hard as concrete when frozen and crumblier than a biscuit based cheesecake if it ever thaws.

Day to day life is pretty grim, with the local delicacies including boiled horse head, which is served at weddings, and bread made from the bark of fir trees. At least there's plenty of vodka to keep you warm - although temperatures are so low that they would actually freeze vodka solid if you left it outside.