The coldest city on Earth - Ready for Reading
B2 First · Gapped Text · Ready for B2 First 4th Edition, Macmillan Education Limited
You are going to read a newspaper article about the Siberian city of Yakutsk. Six sentences have been removed from the article. Choose from the sentences A-G the one which fits each gap (1–6). There is one extra sentence which you do not need to use.
The coldest city on Earth
Shaun Walker enjoys a mini-break in deepest Siberia.
The thirteen minutes I have spent outside have left me out of breath and aching all over.
Even wearing glasses gets tricky: the metal sticks to your cheeks and will tear off your skin when you remove them.
I'm ready to face everything Yakutsk has to throw at me and I stride purposefully out of the hotel door.
Heating pipes are examined and repaired.
Locals are a little more skilled at dealing with the cold.
Nothing else keeps you warm.
Within a few minutes, however, the icy weather begins to make itself felt.
Yakutsk, in eastern Siberia (population 250,000), can convincingly claim to be the coldest city on earth. In January, the frost ‘freezeth’, average ‘highs’ are around minus 40°C; today the temperature is hovering around minus 43°C, leaving the city covered in a blanket of freezing fog that restricts visibility to 10 metres. I have come here to find out for myself how people manage to survive in the world’s coldest place. Before venturing outdoors for the first time, I put on a suitcase’s worth of clothes to protect me against the cold, including a thermal undershirt, a long-sleeved T-shirt, a tight-fitting cashmere jumper, a padded winter coat with hood, two pairs of gloves and a woolly football hat. The small part of my face that is naked to the elements definitely notices the cold air, but on the whole, it feels OK. As long as you’re dressed right, I think, this isn’t too bad.
The first place to suffer is the exposed skin on my face, which experiences shooting pains and goes numb. Then the cold penetrates the double layer of gloves and sets to work on chilling my fingers. The woolly hat and padded hood are no match for minus 43°C either, and my ears begin to sting. Finally, I find myself with severe pain all across my body and have to return indoors. I realise that I’ll need a warm hat to continue my explorations.
I collapse on the bed in the hotel room, and it takes half an hour for my body to feel normal again.
Workers continue working on building sites up to minus 50°C, and children go to school unless it’s below minus 55°C. ‘Of course it’s cold, but you get used to it,’ says Nira, a small woman who spends eight hours every day standing at her stall in the fish market. ‘Human beings can get used to anything,’ she says. Almost without exception, the women wear fur from head to toe. ‘In Europe you have people who say it’s not nice to wear fur because they love animals,’ says Natasha, a Yakutsk resident, who is wearing a coat made of rabbit and a hat of arctic fox. ‘They should come and live in Siberia for a couple of months and then see if they are still so worried about the animals. You need to wear fur here to survive.’
For us, the winter is like the working week and the summer is like the weekend,’ says local blogger Bolot Bochkarev. The short summer, when the temperature hits 30°C or 35°C for two or three weeks, is a time when efforts are made to ensure that the region is ready for winter.
If they fall, those stuck without warmth risk death. The whole region suffers harsh winters. A few hundred miles away is Oymyakon, known as ‘The Pole of Cold’. It was here that the lowest ever temperature in an inhabited place was recorded – minus 71.2°C. Despite the fact that the locals are initially going about their business, and children are playing in the snow on the central square and laughing merrily, I realise that I need better equipment.
Despite the cold, the city is alive. The smoke from exhaust pipes hangs in the frozen air as cars crawl through the fog, their headlights barely visible. The frozen River Lena stretches out into the white distance, silent and still.
Yakutsk, in eastern Siberia (population 250,000), can convincingly claim to be the coldest city on earth. In January, the frost ‘freezeth’, average ‘highs’ are around minus 40°C; today the temperature is hovering around minus 43°C, leaving the city covered in a blanket of freezing fog that restricts visibility to 10 metres. I have come here to find out for myself how people manage to survive in the world’s coldest place. Before venturing outdoors for the first time, I put on a suitcase’s worth of clothes to protect me against the cold, including a thermal undershirt, a long-sleeved T-shirt, a tight-fitting cashmere jumper, a padded winter coat with hood, two pairs of gloves and a woolly football hat. The small part of my face that is naked to the elements definitely notices the cold air, but on the whole, it feels OK. As long as you’re dressed right, I think, this isn’t too bad. ___ The first place to suffer is the exposed skin on my face, which experiences shooting pains and goes numb. Then the cold penetrates the double layer of gloves and sets to work on chilling my fingers. The woolly hat and padded hood are no match for minus 43°C either, and my ears begin to sting. Finally, I find myself with severe pain all across my body and have to return indoors. I realise that I’ll need a warm hat to continue my explorations. ___ I collapse on the bed in the hotel room, and it takes half an hour for my body to feel normal again. ___ Workers continue working on building sites up to minus 50°C, and children go to school unless it’s below minus 55°C. ‘Of course it’s cold, but you get used to it,’ says Nira, a small woman who spends eight hours every day standing at her stall in the fish market. ‘Human beings can get used to anything,’ she says. Almost without exception, the women wear fur from head to toe. ‘In Europe you have people who say it’s not nice to wear fur because they love animals,’ says Natasha, a Yakutsk resident, who is wearing a coat made of rabbit and a hat of arctic fox. ‘They should come and live in Siberia for a couple of months and then see if they are still so worried about the animals. You need to wear fur here to survive.’ ___ For us, the winter is like the working week and the summer is like the weekend,’ says local blogger Bolot Bochkarev. The short summer, when the temperature hits 30°C or 35°C for two or three weeks, is a time when efforts are made to ensure that the region is ready for winter. ___ If they fall, those stuck without warmth risk death. The whole region suffers harsh winters. A few hundred miles away is Oymyakon, known as ‘The Pole of Cold’. It was here that the lowest ever temperature in an inhabited place was recorded – minus 71.2°C. Despite the fact that the locals are initially going about their business, and children are playing in the snow on the central square and laughing merrily, I realise that I need better equipment. ___ Despite the cold, the city is alive. The smoke from exhaust pipes hangs in the frozen air as cars crawl through the fog, their headlights barely visible. The frozen River Lena stretches out into the white distance, silent and still.
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