In Siberia, an open-air market in -40 degrees

With -40 degrees mercury, winter is already well established in Yakutsk in Russia. But more would be needed to discourage the inhabitants. On the outskirts of town, an open-air market is open daily. Here we mainly sell meat and fish and the products are all hard because they are extremely frozen. The Yakutsk Farmers Market opened in 1996, a few years after the collapse of the Communist regime. While the meat comes from the surrounding area, the fish often come from far away, from the shores of the Arctic Ocean.

With the economic crisis in Russia, customers are becoming scarce. But the cold is not a handicap for the trade. “We sell much faster, because people when they are shivering do not take the time to haggle”, indicates a trader. In Yakutsk, fish are eaten raw, without waiting for it to thaw.