Yakutsk is the largest city in the world built on continuous permafrost, and it shows. Buildings stand on concrete piles driven into the frozen ground, so that the heat of the house does not melt what holds it up, and pipes run above ground in insulated boxes, since burying them is impossible. Winter here is among the coldest on Earth for a major city, with temperatures regularly below minus forty, and the air turns to a sparkling fog of ice crystals. Summer, by contrast, can be hot and bright, and the city sits on the great Lena River, a kilometre or more wide.
The Sakha people, also called Yakuts, are Turkic-speaking horse herders who migrated here centuries ago, and their culture is strong, with a rich epic tradition and a small hardy horse bred to survive the cold. Local food includes stroganina, thin shavings of frozen raw fish, eaten with salt and pepper, and horse meat. A museum in the city displays mammoth remains found in the thawing ground, and the permafrost institute has a tunnel in the frozen earth that you can visit.
The roads from here are legendary. The Kolyma Highway, known as the Road of Bones, was built by Gulag prisoners in the 1930s and 1940s, and thousands died along it. The start is across the Lena from Yakutsk at Nizhny Bestyakh, reached by a ferry in summer and an ice road in winter, and from there the road runs toward Khandyga and beyond, a route of gravel, mud and dust through endless forest. The Lena Highway south toward Neryungri is better, though still demanding. Distances are huge, services are rare, mosquitoes in July are fierce, and weather can change fast.
Yakutsk has more than two hundred thousand people, with fuel, food, hotels and repair shops. Fill up completely before leaving, carry spare fuel, tools and water, and tell someone your plans. Foreign riders should check current conditions and rules before planning travel.