The Pole of Cold Festival - 2007

A solemn opening of Santa Claus's House is going to be one of the most considerable moments of the festival in Oymyakon, Yakutia, which is going to take place on 23-25 March.

Santa Claus from Lapland is going to personally attend the opening of his residence. He will be accompanied by the Yakut Frost Lord Chiskhaan and Father Frost from Veliky Ustyug, a representative of Yakutia’s ministry for business, tourism and employment told Interfax.

‘The three folktale characters meet in Yakutia every year, so it’s already become a good tradition. The international tourism festival ‘Frost Pole’ has been held there since 2001. The festival includes the event ‘Winter Begins in Yakutia,’ during which Father Frost and Santa Claus receive from Chiskhaan a symbol of the frost,’ he said.

The festival includes various shows, a fair of ethic wear, art and cuisine of the North peoples, a reindeer farmers event, a reindeer race, ice-fishing, and many kinds of competitions, the ministry representative said.

The festival also includes a traditional motor rally - 1270 km (789 mi) from Yakutsk to Oymyakon. The rally has much of tourism in its program, and includes visiting museums, historic sites, cultural and ethnographic parks. ‘It’s really an extreme thing. The participants should prepare themselves for steep slopes and rises, tricky narrow paths and mountain passes,’ he added.

The festival is initiated in order to attract interest to tourism in Yakutia and promotion of the project Cold Pole; potential investments are planned to be directed to development of the infrastructure of the tourism industry in the region, museums activity, and improvement of transport schemes.