Overnight stays inside the Arctic Circle – both the regular and the unusual.

The time has finally come to lift the curtain on something I’ve only been mentioning in passing while writing these here Yakutsk-Tiksi-Yakutsk expedition posts: the where-we-stayed situation up inside the Arctic Circle and in just-as-cold other areas of Yakutia…

In the smallest of nutshells, the situation is as follows:

• There are places to stay – but often they’re nothing like hotels or guesthouses
• A hot shower isn’t guaranteed
• A toilet is guaranteed – and it’s not always outside!
• The range of comfort levels couldn’t be broader – from dossing down on floors of town-halls or school sports halls, or sleeping in our vehicles (ugh), to the relative (for permafrosted locations) luxury of decent hotel in a city; like the Tygin Darkhan in Yakutsk ->

Tiny nutshell – done. The rest of this post: details…

I’ll start with the hotels…

We stayed in three throughout the whole expedition: twice in Yakutsk (see above), and once in both Ust-Nera and Tiksi.

I described the hotel in Ust-Nera in 2021 (we stayed at the same hotel in 2022). Since then – nothing’s changed:

In Tiksi the hotel was on the second floor of a four-story apartment building: they’d clearly removed some of the inner walls originally dividing floorspace into separate apartments to make a whole corridor’s length worth of hotel rooms (somewhat reminiscent of how the Beatles had much the same kind of thing in the movie Help, I thought) ->

The rooms on offer were for two, three or four persons:

But we were all together (later that evening) in here:

Even in March – traces of typical Tiksi winter remained:

…Not that we were missing out on amazing views out the kitchen window: next door… ->

Some guesthouses were charming little properties. For example, in Khandyga (where, on our first two road-trips, we stayed in an ancient and dilapidated two-story wooden barracks), we stayed in his rather nice new-build:

Inside:

Bedrooms:

One of my coffee-table hardback photo-books now sits on this here bookshelf:

Bath-and-laundry room (and who left the seat up?!) ->

Our guesthouse in Ust-Kuyga was somewhat more basic; however – that’s to be expected: the village doesn’t sit right on the federal highway, but… 1100km therefrom! ->

All the same – the most important things were all present: roof, warmth, hot water – and a WC (inside!). Basic but clean:

The above pics of our Ust-Kuyga lodgings are of the “VIP” lodgings. The second half of the group weren’t so lucky. So unlucky in fact that they opted for sleeping in their vehicles! Still – that came with a silver lining: they got to witness the northern lights after midnight!

In Batagay there’s a small, cozy hotel which we’d stayed at before, liked, and so booked again; however, we arrived there a little earlier than expected and found… there were no vacancies! So we were directed to the nearby college’s hostel. Oh my ghastly! How it looked on the outside was so brutally bad that at first my camera refused to focus on it properly :) ->

There was one thing I liked about the place: the emphasis on cleanliness – as least as far as the floors inside go. Upon entering, the strict rule is to take your shoes/boots off and either put some slippers on proceed further in your socks. Can’t say fairer – or cleaner – than that…

Now – if the corridor and the walls of the rooms seem to you somewhat wonky – it’s not your eyes betraying you. Everything in the hostel is wonky. Still, it adds to its uniqueness and memorability – and sure beats sleeping in the car (or in a school sports-hall on gym mats!).

Solid wood floors. Respect! ->

The restroom:

The spacious bathroom:

Sure – basic; but clean – like all the places we stayed at. And the spartan conditions never once spoiled our mood in the kitchen of an evening cooking and having supper. Also – none of us fell ill with anything!

The next variant of Yakutian hospitality comes in the form of private apartments rented out Airbnb style. And a good variant it is too. For example, in the village of Khonuu we stayed at apartments in this block:

Again – basic simplicity is the name of the game, but we all felt comfortable ->

As sometimes was the case – possibly no full refurbishment since Soviet times (iron bathtub, standard-issue sink…), but that brought with it a certain nostalgia ->

Kitchen – nice:

Not bad for a place that’s never had a road connecting it with the outside world (only a temporary winter road)!

In the town of Deputatsky we also stayed in a Rusbnb – in these here apartment buildings:

Again – comfy (and warm) without the trimmings ->

Kitchen + Manhattan ->

Out the window though – hardly Manhattan…

… But actually much better (no snow-topped mountains as a backdrop in New York:) ->

In the guesthouse in Tomtor (where we stayed in 2022 too) there’s a very welcome bonus feature: a banya (Russian sauna).

As for Oymyakon, we simply dropped in on Tamara Egorovna, whose guesthouse we’d stayed in before (both in 2021 and 2022), just to say hello. At least that was the plan. But I’m getting ahead of myself. More on those best-laid plans in the upcoming posts…

For now though – let me tell you about the unusual, or exotic, places we stayed at on our expedition…

The first was in the village of Sasyr…

Since there are no guesthouses or hotels in Sasyr, we contacted the village’s administration and they put us up in… the sports hall of the village’s school – in this building (featuring anti-seismic buttresses, btw) ->

And here’s said sports hall – replete with table-tennis tables (plus a machine that throws the balls at you!) ->

There were 11 of us – and 11 sports mats. A match made in heaven. It was then I realized that this expedition was going to be a lucky one (and it was)!

In the village of Syagannakh we were put up in another sports “hall”! ->

When we first saw our lodgings from the outside our hearts sank a little; however, inside – everything new and clean and shiny! ->

We arrived in Khayrr real late – but in time for a nice sunset pic:

In Khayyr we stayed in another school sports hall – a schotel:

As before – clean and with plenty of gym mats ) ->

We were in the school’s sports hall on the way; on the way back we were in the village hall – on the stage. I’ve spoken up on stages around the world probably more than thousand times, but sleeping on one – this was a first ) ->

Another thing that was a first: not a full-house! ->

But the most unusual place we stayed at on the expedition was in the village of Tyoply Klyuch, on the Kolyma Highway ->

Halo upon arrival ->

And our lodgings were in… the village’s museum! ->

Well – at least in one of its seemingly spare/sports halls…

…Handily with a pile of gym mats in the corner:

Some nights, when there was literally not just no room at the inn – but no inns at all, we spent the night in our vehicles; not nice. Like between Batagay and Topolinoe ->

So there you have it folks – Arctic Circle lodgings: done.

Next up – Arctic Circle fine dining…

The rest of the pics from our Yakutsk-Tiksi-Yakutsk expedition are here.