Fuel in Tiksi – literally double in price (but still cheaper than in Europe)!

I left you yesterday with us on our way out of Khonuu early morning heading to the nearest filling station. As you’ll no doubt know, refueling is normally rather straightforward; however, up here – just outside the Arctic Circle – it’s far from simple…

First of all, you have to find a filling station, for there aren’t many. That often means heading to the next village – or the one after that – and in northern Yakutia that can mean serious distances (an extra hundred kilometers, for example). But there’s more to refueling than just that; accordingly, I hereby announce that this post is dedicated to… Yakutian gas stations!…

Now, filling stations in the Far North aren’t the all-singing-all-dancing minimarket-cafes with hotdogs and assorted other bells and whistles like you get in more temperate climes across the developed world. In a word, here, they’re simple:

And here are the prices you can expect to pay:

– “ДТ” is diesel, priced at 94 rubles per liter;
– “92” is 92-octane gas; price: 82.2 rubles per liter;
– “95” octane gas – in your dreams, dear driver;
– “98” octane gas – “what’s that?!”

So now let me translate those prices into something meaningful for you, dear readers.

Diesel in Moscow is priced at around 60 rubles per liter; here it’s 94!

92-octane gas in Moscow is around 50 rubles; here it’s 82.2!

Oh yes – it’s expensive! But only relatively; for we’re kinda spoilt in Russia when it comes to the price of fuel at the filling station. Across Europe, for example, diesel is roughly 1.6 euro (~150 rubles!), while 95-octane gas is around 1.8 euro (~170 rubles!).

Of course – nearer (or in) a populated center – the more filling stations there are, the bigger they are (more pumps), the more modern they are, the more bells-and-whistles they have, and the lower their prices are:

In the town of Nizhny Bestyakh – over on the other side of the Lena River opposite Yakutsk – was where we found the cheapest fuel:

The filling station in Ust-Nera – at the mid-point of the Kolyma Highway:

The price of diesel there approaching a hundred rubles ->

…The “restrooms“! ->

And since there was only one WC, the line for it was a long one. In the meantime, I whipped out my camera…

The last time we were in Ust-Nera, the prices were much lower:

Here’s the filling station in the village Deputatsky:

The prices – high (for Russia) ->

In Ust-Kuyga – prices high:

The most astronomical prices for fuel were, as perhaps could be expected, in Tiksi:

As could also be expected, the filling station wasn’t up to much:

As to the prices…

Diesel: 122 rubles;

92-octane gas: 108 rubles!

Meanwhile in Moscow… ->

Yes – confounding prices. Still, imagine the logistical nightmare of getting fuel all the way up to Tiksi?…

And that’s all for this here fuel interlude, folks. Tomorrow we’re back on the frozen-over Indigirka River…

All the photos from our Yakutsk-Tiksi-Yakutsk road trip are here.