Most Dangerous Ways To School | OIMJAKON (Russia) | Free Documentary

[Music] we all know it walked it every day but none of them were like these the world's most dangerous ways to school [Music] climbing freezing paddling for hours all for the chance of a better life risky spectacular and sometimes simply beautiful the world's most dangerous ways to score [Music] Siberia endless vastness arctic temperatures even further east and Japan and 5000 kilometers north of Vladivostok lies Yakutia Russia's coldest Republic in the midst of it or Mia Khan with five hundred r

esidents it is the coldest inhabited place on earth the average temperature in winter minus 40 degrees Celsius here everything ordinary becomes something special also and especially the way to school [Music] a daily adventure trip in hostile temperatures [Music] the children of the Siberian Anya Khan have the world's coldest way to score 6 a.m. an ice cold morning in a makan arena talaq is preparing for when her children get up she melts the ice from the river so her son Alyosha can wash the sle

ep out of his eyes there is no running water at the coldest place on earth temperatures can reach as low as minus 70 degrees Celsius water pipes would quite simply freeze so the residents fetch their fresh water from the river in blocks of ice and then melted for years [Music] afterwards Elina checks the temperature and she does every day around minus 50 degrees again that means her son Anusha must go to school [Music] lyosha is 8 years old the children of his age group are only excused from att

ending school when the temperatures dip below minus 54 degrees even before his departure for school Alyosha feels the grim cold with no running water the house also has no toilet so a Yasha already has to go outside to the outhouse in the garden sometimes I wouldn't mind staying inside the house because I'm only able to take staying outside for an hour at most maybe to his mother Alena has heated up the living room to about 20 degrees so when a Yasha opens the door to the outer room and afterwar

ds the actual front door it is essentially 70 degrees colder every day life in Anya Khan [Music] in any economy no one spends more time than necessary out in the court everything that happens outside is done very efficiently otherwise it not only becomes unpleasant but also dangerous the little y accout rushes back into the house as fast as he can [Music] seven kilometers away on a remote farm Alyosha's classmate suyana is up to the family lives from their cows before going to school say Jana mu

st help in the stable it's relatively warm there with temperatures around freezing in Anya Khan - they say work is the best clothing [Music] and AH Sayana will you please bring the bucket in the stool when I'm older I will help you milk even more cows okay during the severe winters the family needs every helping hand in the stable the elder siblings pitch in and help with the feeding and tending of the animals the family could will imagine say Jana taking over the farm one day but in truth they'

ve known for a long time that school is the key to their youngest daughter's dreams I like animals not only cows but also dogs and cats that's why you'd prefer to become a vet right oh yes anyone who wants to become a vent must go to school [Music] and whoever wants to go to school and lives outside the village is dependent on Grigory Grigory is the driver of the school bus the only one in oil yakun [Music] the school supplied the 58 year old with a heated garage this luxury guarantees that the

engine fluids of the bus are protected from freezes and that his vehicle starts in these icy temperatures today it is very cold again I have to check the oil and the gearbox every morning it's already below minus 50 degrees well that's normal so what that's how I do it every day yes after all it's for the sake of the children's lives [Music] [Music] in order for the bus to be able to drive in these extreme temperatures in the first place grigory has taken special precautions for the bus engine f

ailure with children on board would be very dangerous therefore the 58 year old uses blankets as insulation for all the damage of all sensitive cables this is supposed to protect the bus against the extreme cold during nine long winter months grigory keeps warm by listening to the radio turned up loudly indeed all the time [Music] some of the students are bugged by grigory's loud radio but there is no way to avoid it the children living on the farms outside the village are dependent on the bus d

river most households have no car of their own [Music] back to a Yasha after half an hour on the stove the water from the river is warm enough for the daily spit bath in the cushioned part of Siberia there are almost no jobs without a school leaving certificate the chances of finding a good job or poor Aleutians mother knows this that's why she sends her children to school only her youngest son may stay at home today the kindergarten remains closed at temperatures below minus 48 degrees Celsius

on her parents farm seven kilometers away from home you can say Yanis and her family's work in the stable is now done breakfast there's fish eggs and warm Orage made of bread milk and sugar a warm high energy beyond say Jana has older siblings who will soon have to catch the bus to school as well [Music] dad hurry up with your breakfast make sure you don't miss that bus shame the family's farm is so remote that the school bus cannot pick up sigh Jana and her brothers directly the three of them s

till have to walk quite a ways through the icy cold their mother Shekinah wraps her daughter in four different layers of clothes on top of which she wears another two jackets as well as two pairs of gloves a cap and a thick coat often sigh Jana wears so many clothes that she is unable to dress or undress by herself [Music] the student Alyosha should also make no mistake when dressing for his way to school and relies on the layering method as well like the other children in I me Akane the eight-y

ear-old has a special outfit solely for school over his sweater Alyosha is wearing a shirt and a jacket he also wears six layers of clothing including the warm jacket made of wool and fur his mother Elena covers every exposed inch of his skin in Omnicon frostbite is not uncommon Alyosha walks quickly when he is on his way only for a short moment a very special one does he take his time he hears his nasal mucus membrane crackle as it freezes in his sinuses within split seconds the moisture immedi

ately formed little icicles on his eyelashes hi time to get going on his way to school which is about one kilometer long a worried mother stays behind we only survive here because we're used to it but below 55 56 degrees I don't let them leave the house - well that's around minus 60 it's too dangerous we then don't go out at all today it is three degrees warmer than the arena's limit of minus 55 degrees much to a your show's delight because he doesn't like today is where he is not allowed out at

all in spite of the cold a Yasha really likes his way to school I like my way to school because it's on foot running is great fun hottie Alyosha likes to dawdle and sometimes even makes a few detours despite his parents strict instructions meanwhile the school bus still struggles along the ramshackle streets of Yakutia rig Ori needs to pick up nearly 50 children today and take them to school once Grigory felt ill more than a third of the students missed class if the bus breaks down yet again it

is dangerous for everybody and this happens often in the coldest place on earth [Music] no I'll be telling reality if it's that cold the oil and the petrol can freeze everything working on fluids can freeze then I have to warm it up somehow otherwise the bus won't start no Lex you must never put it away the streets around ome akan are in poor condition every pothole can become a trap out here in the case of an engine breakdown Grigory has 30 minutes until the temperature inside the car reaches

the outside temperature of minus 50 degrees the only bus driver far and wide is aware of his special responsibilities carefully he steers the bus around the largest holes out here broken axles are not uncommon at these temperatures shock absorbers quickly freeze and become hard and stiff but in Yakutia a car is a newfangled phenomenon the Siberians have always banked on our natural resources which are independent of technology which is sensitive to the cold reindeer this new species is an import

ant part of life in Yakutia on the one hand reindeer are a fat rich food on the other hand they serve as work animals pulling the sleigh and where there are no cars yet they are also used as a riding animal the domestication of the reindeer has helped the Omni economy for centuries in a struggle against the icy cold the reason for these extreme sub-zero temperatures lies in the unique geographical position of Yakutia mountain ranges close the little village off from the warm air streams coming f

rom the west and the south on the other hand the door to the Arctic is wide open icy streams of air press forward unhindered so in a mia cowan winter lasts from October until April [Music] the old time record low temperature - 71 degrees Celsius recorded in 2013 by the local meteorologist during the summer months in June July on the other hand it might even get as hot as 30 degrees the villages however take rather more pride in low temperature records [Music] to go to school in these ice cold te

mperatures is daily routine for the children in America it's high time for suyana to get going sionis siblings always join her their parents forbid her to walk this way alone their fear of her freezing to death on her way is too great for us this cold has become normal by now I too had to go to school under these conditions school sigh Anna is still very young but considering her age she knows quite well how to deal with the cold and the older ones helped the younger ones that reassures me a bit

like nearly all children diana goes marching to school but it's not solely due to the call under no circumstances may she miss the bus it would in fact be better to be there a few minutes early because the bus only comes once and does not wait without deigning to look at them the three of them meet creatures which only exist here above the Arctic Circle wild horses [Music] for the specially thick-skinned they run free and can cope with temperatures down to minus 70 degrees [Music] unlike the re

indeer horses are not work animals in Omnicon and it wouldn't occur to anyone to ride them horse meat is a delicacy here an exercise would make the meat tough by now the bus has done more than half of its door several children have been picked up and it's three more kilometers to say Ana's home but then Grigory is in trouble [Music] [Music] something's wrong [Music] [Music] one of the rear wheels won't turn anymore that happens quite often I'm afraid these are old tires they spin this definitely

wouldn't happen with new ones just much more distance if the bus gets stuck out here there is a serious problem boy Mia Khan is four kilometres away nobody will come to their aid Grigory must fix the bus by himself otherwise it may quickly become dangerous just last week someone wanted to drive to the neighbouring village Tom tore his fuel indicator was inaccurate he hadn't checked it his car ran out of fuel out here and he not got as far as here it might have been able to walk back well he die

d say Jana isn't aware of any of this with hurried steps she trudges to the meeting point through the snow sigh Jana doesn't know that the bus had a breakdown she might have just as easily have missed it the only thing she can do is hope and wait for the school bus at minus 52 degrees [Music] I hope the bus is still coming or I won't be able to go to school a few minutes the eight-year-old can afford to wait in the cold then she must quickly return home her destination the school is seven kilome

tres away on the northern edge of the forest the pride and joy of the town of 500 residents here 25 teachers educate 118 students the school principal Catarina you've Kavya lives across the street at a quarter to wait she is the first to enter the building [Music] this is the only school here for the children living in this area it is the only chance to receive an education the school with its 25 classrooms is the largest building in amia Khan therefore it is also the most difficult to keep warm

we have central district heating here which only heats this school and a few more private houses a small coal-fired power plant eats six buildings by a district heating round-the-clock with the help of 20 tons of brown coal per year all the houses in onion are built of wood like the school any other material would burst with the differences in temperature of over 100 degrees between winter and summer the structure of the houses is similar everywhere an unheated outer room serves as a locking st

oreroom then comes the heating room with the fireplace followed by a room which is used as a living and dining room and behind that by the bedrooms in order for the house to remain warm yummy icons fill up every gap however small with polyurethane foam but the cold comes in at some point anyway always a yo shows father has to heat the house nine months non-stop in order to keep it warm somehow my parents my grandparents and my great great grandparents have lived here and so we live here too I li

ke living in harmony with nature in order to live in harmony with the extreme cold one has to constantly be on the alert even when performing very ordinary tasks aleena cannot let the freshly washed laundry dry in the house the risk is too great that the moisture will cause the beams of the house to split [Music] at the coldest place on earth the laundry always dries in the garden [Music] within seconds the water is frozen the laundry as stiff as a board at least the washers free of germs the lo

w temperatures immediately kill any germs but Alyosha's father is also aware of the many disadvantages of the cold especially when people get careless many people here drink and it's happened often that they fall asleep in the snow they don't notice that they're freezing to death already at temperatures around minus 20 the extremities start to die off a few years ago a friend of his froze to death in the middle of the village ones worries become even greater if your eight-year-old happens to be

a cheeky kid in spite of the icy temperatures he is full of nonsense just as any other child his age would be he especially likes to scare the cattle on their way to the waterhole he takes no notice of the special clothes the thick-skinned cows are wearing as a shield against the cold their owner has strapped a sort of special bra around their udders a bra made of nylon stockings protects the most sensitive parts of their bodies from frostbite Sayana has been waiting for more than 15 minutes alr

eady but still no bus in sight if it doesn't arrive soon she will have to return home 400 meters away north of the Bering Sea Ana's father performs his daily duties the firewood doesn't have to dry after it's been chopped due to the icy cold it has become so brittle one blow is enough to break it and say Ana's father needs a lot of wood more than 60 cubic meters is burned by each inhabitant on average every winter that adds up to five truckloads we live here and work here without the work one ca

nnot survive whoever doesn't work of course it's cold life can be tough here sometimes but then you just have to work harder sometimes we work for sheer survival what more can I say if it's extremely cold they simply cannot allow my children to run around outside then they have to stay inside way computer games or watch TV it's the only way they're allowed to walk is their way to school anyway for say Ana's parents moving away from Aamir Khan is out of the question they decided a long time ago t

o live in the coldest place on earth but say Jana should make her own decision and that is only possible if she goes to school and graduates [Music] like many other parents in ome akan they put Grigory in charge of that [Music] and so often the bus driver uses all available means to get his bus going again and to escape from the cold giving it a lot of gas and with a little bit of luck he manages but now it's shortly before 8 o clock the breakdown cost him almost a quarter of an hour it is quite

possible that many children won't be waiting at the agreed meeting points anymore [Applause] but say Jana has held out just in time Gregori picks up the freezing 8 year old the school bus on the one hand it's the only way to get to school on the other an unpopular necessity [Music] the school bus is the worst thing it's always loud dirty and too hot in there [Music] Alyosha has been on his way for half an hour already even though he can make it to school in a good 20 minutes but the lure to tak

e the detour across the frozen river in the morning was too great now the nine-year-old is freezing within a short time the bitter cold always finds its way through all six layers of clothes the ice beneath Alyosha's feet is up to four meters thick in some places in winter cars and grigory's school bus use the river as a shortcut for the boy the riverbed is always a place to discover new things because the indie Gurkha that's what the omnicons call the river although frozen is still alive four t

imes a year a truck from Yakuza which is 700 kilometers away delivers canned and vacuum packed food apart from this the residents of ome Akane lives self-sufficiently in every season of the year the river provides staple food such as fish in wintertime the river indi Gierke is the hunting ground for ice anglers using their fishing rods and nets they provide the basic food supply of the whole village they wait for hours with their nets [Music] then they grabbed the fish out of the nets with their

bare hands the water which is zero degrees doesn't bother them what does bother them though is the air temperature of minus 50 degrees the ice fishermen don't have to kill the fish within seconds the animals are shocked frozen [Music] the ice fishermen probably have the coldest job here in Aiea con that's not Russia one day he wants to create something and see the world I'd like nothing better than to become an architect those houses that's why I told school whenever he doesn't feel like going

to school and taking on the icy way to get there Alyosha remembers his dream the last few meters and he's made it he is at school [Music] wearily and frozen stiff he reaches the school building at a quarter past eight Alyosha is a bit early but there are already many children there all those children who arrive on foot arrange enough time to thaw after their way to school the best way is to play around [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Alyosha's teacher prepares for her cl

ass half of the seats are still vacant but in the coldest place on earth nobody is able to skip class if it's that cold outside the parents may decide for themselves whether they send their children to school or not but if the children don't turn up without informing the school and having an excuse we must definitely call and ask what has happened the risk of a child freezing to death on his or her way to school is too high [Music] by now the bus is full to bursting point it's loud stuffy but at

least it's not cold [Laughter] after the more than 2 hour drive grigory finally drives the crammed bus up to school Sayana is happy to have arrived and Gregori can take a break until school ends at 2 p.m. it's exactly half past 8 say Jana arrives in the nick of time with the school bell ringing today all children are more or less punctual and lessons start five hours lie ahead of the children man biology history and Russian Alyosha and say Jana Aria Koontz their language is based on their Turki

sh and Mongolian roots the accordion language has little to do with Russian and so the children have to learn Russian almost as a foreign language at least if they want to leave this forbidden place at some point in time [Music] Sayana stands a fair chance she is a straight-a student and top of her class [Applause] Alyosha is talented but not very hard-working [Music] my favorite classes for history and math but to be honest I come here to play and pay and meet my friends after the first two les

sons it's time for the main break the students storm into the cafeteria in code Siberia there is traditionally a second breakfast for the children warm noodles and hot tea essential for the increased energy needs [Music] afterwards they all stay in the building no one wants to go out from the schoolyard for this the children would first of all need to put on various layers of clothing that's too cumbersome takes too long and it's simply too damn cold outside [Music] the play equipment in the yar

d is used only during three months of the year however they are designed in such a way that they can withstand even the coldest winter on earth [Music] if no one comes to the garden the garden must go to the students a few green plants provide for a little wellness oasis apart from that the students passed the time playing board games the school rifle is also very popular with the boys the children learn how to disassemble a real gun and put it back together again [Music] the quicker they learn

how to do this the earlier their fathers will take them hunting since the children can't really let off steam inside the building there are gym exercises at the beginning of the third lesson [Music] it's a Jana and a Yasha are in Russian class right now this time the students were asked to learn a whole poem by heart say Jana worked hard and knows all the verses perfectly [Music] [Music] school ends at 2:00 p.m. well the children from nearby start off on their cold foot walk back home the school

bus children wait for Grigory and his ramshackle bus in the school building where it's nice and warm [Music] often the students can hear him before they see him quite simply because of the loud music afterwards all of them just want to get into the warm bus [Music] Alyosha enjoys the first part of the way walking with a friend then he's on his own again despite the extreme cold his desire to move about is not in the least bit exhausting Alyosha does what all children of the world do on their wa

y home he makes up his own games again the eight-year-old Donnell's on his way but mom and dad know their son and also know when they have to start worrying sure thing he was seriously now he's fully warmed up he won't be coming home that quickly now but he's well wrapped up he wants to stay outside and play but his games never last very long nevertheless Alyosha's father always feels a bit of relief when he sees his son come in through the garden gate [Music] suyana made it through the drive ba

ck with Grigory School Bus before doing her homework she helps her mother in the kitchen the two are very close and spend a lot of time together no wonder friends from school rarely come over to play at the farm because they must take the bus and after stay the night [Music] Alyosha and his brothers turned the living room into a playground the three of them have a great time together their favorite game is playing bus or car I prefer summer then I could play outside longer I say Ana's siblings a

re too old to be playing with her most of the time she spends with her homework or coloring books there's not much else to do for her in the coldest place on earth [Music] at school there are many children at home it is so boring at school it's different scrolling this question and my siblings are always just sitting in front of their computers at 7 p.m. it's time for eight-year-old undershot to go to bed the next day the thermometer will decide whether he must get up early again whether they wi

ll once again have to set out on one of the most dangerous ways to school on earth [Music]