Another video with YakutiaToday.com's pictures

Yakutsk: Journey to the coldest city on earth

Two weeks ago I received a message from Shaun Walker, The Independent Moscow-based correspondent. He informed me of his coming to Yakutsk and asked for meeting and advising. So, he arrived, spent three days here, and wrote the great story Yakutsk: Journey to the coldest city on earth.

The article turned out to be a headliner in The Independent Travel Section. The story immediately was reposted in other mass media, blogs (eg, A Walsh View) and sites. It was even translated into Russian by InoPress.ru (link), and came out in local online newspaper editions.

Cool! Another good job we did!

P.S. Outdoor market in Shaun Walker's picture.

BTW, next month Zadig Productions French company's team is arriving for making a documentary of Yakutsk as one of four extreme cities on earth.

An interesting video

Umira, YouTube user, created an interesting video clip using YakutiaToday.com's photos. That seems to be the promotion of the site, Varya Larionova and Ysyakh (Yakut national holiday). Watch it!

Ayarkhaan's album on sale

Ayarkhaan's first album "The Sounds of the Olonkho land" is available at online store. Listen track samples (like this one) and purchase the Audio CD.

Ayarkhaan's blog

YakutiaToday.com helped Ayarkhaan, world-known khomus players group, and its leader Albina Degtyareva to create and launch the group's official site in the form of blog. More profound group info and latest news are available online at http://ayarkhaan.blogspot.com/. More about the site creation, please, read in news.

Russian Version Appeared

At long last, we aquired the Russian version. Precisely, this section is done in the format of blog. Here we are going to post information on site work and cooperation activity for Russian readers.

This site section is another opportunity for international visitors to make their messages available to Russian-speaking Yakutians. If you've got any offer or request, send it to us and we'll translate and post it on the Russian blog.

E-shop Master: CafePress.com

As you may see, we've discovered CafePress.com.

That's the easiest way to create online store. Register an account, upload and post your own media files on any desired products - all with no upfront costs. CafePress handles all product creation, credit card processing, shipping and customer service.

Products might be:
1) T-shirts & Clothing, Posters & Prints, Housewares, etc.
2) Books (you've got unique opportunity to self-publish them).
3) Audio and data CDs.

This site is perfect for designers, artists, photographers, writers, programmers and other creative persons to make money out of their works.

So Internet users are encouraged to use such opportunity. Especially, if you've got something related to Yakutia. We think your selling T-Shirts with pictures of Yakutia is another good way to promote the exotic unknown region. If you're ready to sell pieces related to Yakutia, just let us know. We'll post links to your products and be sure we are ready to reforward traffic to your e-shop.

We noticed that YakutiaToday.com is often visited from the USA, Australia, Hong Kong, Germany, UK, Canada, Japan. If you're from these nations, click on links to your countries to see what CafePress has to offer you.

*Shipping rates are not so high, indeed.

Good luck!

By the way, don't forget to visit YakutiaToday.com Online Store.

Interns to come

Glad to inform that Translation Department of Yakutsk State University is sending five four-year students to have internship in YakutiaToday.com's editorial office. It means more big stories to appear on the website. Cool!

Marshalltown, USA, became interested in Yakutsk

A couple of weeks ago Ken Black, Times-Republican News Reporter based in Marshalltown, USA, expressed his interest to the City of Yakutsk, one of the coldest cities in the world.

He forwarded many questions to me. The key one was "How do you cope under such extreme conditions in winter?" I replied and he wrote then a column dedicated to Yakutsk at Times-Republican on December 29, 2006.

His story is available at YakutiaToday.com in the section Life under the title Yakutsk. Life in Winter.

Culture exchange is what we intend to do

Yesterday I recieved a Christmas card from my Finish friend Rainer K. Lampinen. He is a very active person. A great photographer (www.panoramicimages.fi). A great public worker. He is Chairmen of Finish-Turkic Association. Just as a joke his non-profit organization established a very small and modest photo gallery - Underground Photo Gallery. After 2.5 years it became very popular in Finland.

Let's make flashback. Four years ago I worked on www.arctictravel-yakutia.com, the website of Arctic Travel company. At that time the site aquired popularity among international Internet users, because it had English version. Now this resource, unfortunately, doesn't exist anymore, we lost domain, just because a hosting company couldn't accept online payment made by our Visa card issued in Yakutsk. Whatever. Sometimes a debit card (even Visa) doesn't work well.

So I posted many pictures of Yakutia on www.arctictravel-yakutia.com. There was Evgenia Arbugaeva's collection as well. Rainer K. Lampinen saw her works. He liked them and immediately proposed her to come to Findland and have her first abroad photo exhibition in Helsinki. That event happened and had a great success. I even wrote an article about her breakthrough for Molodezh Yakutii Newspaper three years ago.

So I was happy to hear from Rainer K. Lampinen again. He is so active. Many projects he launched, many events he initiated. He may serve as a great example for all public workers, including me, certainly. I sent him my own Christmas card. He replied me quickly.

He wrote "If you need I can send one of my art photo exhibition to your country. "

Hm-m-m. Sounds great!

"And we can exhibit art photos from Sakha Republic if somebody might be interested in," he added.

Oh, we have many talanted photographers. We are always ready to promote them abroad. That's what Sakha World XXI Century activity is about. Cultural exchange is what we intend to do.

The way to go! Let's see what we may do together in the near future.

Viva Mr. ZUEV! & Local Peculiarity of Public Work

It is astonishing! There are many locals who deserve international audience's attention and actually wish to see information about themselves, works or activity on YakutiaToday.Com. To reach verbal understanding with them is easy. They say 'Certainly, I (or we) would like to cooperate with you. This is in my interest.' They even ensure me not to worry about translation into English, for they can translate texts themselves or with someone's assistant. 'Everything will be cool,' they say and disappear (in a literal sense).

As time goes by, I arrive at a conclusion that the reached agreement is not the reason to stop reminding about promised materials. Everything might happen. Busy work schedule. Absence of time to gather data. Hardship with writing in English. Laziness. And, by the way, public service is what may wait. Many obstacles to find. Besides, I am not sinful. I have almost the same troubles. THAT'S THE VERY PECULIARITIES OF PUBLIC WORK IN HERE. That's why we experience difficulties from time to time with updating the site demanded by Internet users very strongly according to the web statistics.

However, there are exceptions. The last one is Alexei Zuev whose hobby is photographing. He had been living in Yakutia for a long time. But a few years ago he moved to Kaluga, West Russia. Nevertheless, he comes to the republic regularly for a short trip around the republic.

Several months ago I happened to acquaint with Alexei. I told him about the Internet-project. He liked it sincerely and said, 'Sure, I will collaborate with you. But I have to go back to Kaluga! Let's do it on my next trip.' Here we go. Another promise I hear. 'He will certainly forget about our talk,' I thought. But he didn't. Two days ago Alexei appeared at my work place. Smiling. 'Do you remember me?' he asked.

You know what? He gave me a bunch of perfect photographs taken during his travel across Yakutia. Mountains, taiga, reindeer breeders, Lena Pillars, Yakut horses, hunting, fishing, rivers - Lena and Tokko - and many other northern features found reflection in his pictures. I cannot but wait for weekend to edit and display them on the site.

The first year of the site's existence is coming to the end. And here is my point. YakutiaToday.Com is volunteers' project. Nobody is obliged to work with us. It is all about good will and sacrificed time. Sounds like pathos. But that's reality.
P.S. The first portion of Mr. Zuev's pictures have been already posted. Check his gallery.