YAKUTSK, an A.S.S.R. of Asiatic Russia formed in 1922, stretching from the Siberian area on the west to the Far Eastern area on the east, and from the Arctic ocean on the north to about lat. 54° N., where it is again bordered by the Far Eastern area. It covers about 4,000,00o sq.km. and is therefore almost equal in size to European Russia, but its total population in 1926 was roughly 278,80o.
The region is the least explored in Russia, and has a tragic history of disaster overtaking many scientists whose efforts to investigate this inhospitable region have given us what informa tion is available. A geological expedition sent out to the Aldan watershed by the Soviet Government in 1926 nearly perished of starvation and records that the price of salt was 4 grammes of gold for 400 grammes of salt and that meat cost 3o to 4o grammes of gold per kg. In 1927 the National Academy of Science organised a further expedition which proposes to remain for five years' investigation of various districts in Yakutsk.
Physical Features.—Much of Yakutsk is occupied by the basin of the Lena (q.v.). The Lena forms the eastern marginal river to that ancient block along the edge of which the Yenisei (q.v.) flows in the west. It flows in a true valley of erosion of very great age and is not confined by mountains except near its mouth, where the Khara-ulakh range, a spur of the folded moun tains of the Verkhoyansk arc, rises on its right bank and deflects its course, while subsidiary fold lines affect the lower courses of the Olenek and the Anabar to the west. To the north lies a broad tundra belt sloping to the Arctic, from which rise four domes of basic eruptive rock.
Climate.—The soils of the republic are not favourable to cultivation; a broad belt south of the Arctic consists of dry clayey, stony tundra soil, merging southwards into forest tundra soil and then into the ash coloured alkali forest soils of the south, while there are belts of silty bog soils on the mountains. Along the banks of the Lena and Olekma, are strips and patches of fertile alluvial soils. The climate is severe and extreme, and Verkhoyansk
(67° 50' N., 133° 50' E.) has the greatest annual range of tempera ture in the world ; its average January temperature is —59° F, absolute minimum —9o° F, average July temperature 6o° F, absolute maximum 93° F. The fact that this cold pole lies so far east shows that the Atlantic has much more moderating influence than the Pacific, the latter being shut off by mountains, and also having strong prevailing off-shore winds. The change of tempera ture between the seasons is sudden and there is a drop of 40° F between October and November. At Yakutsk in lat. 62° I' N., winter is still extremely long and severe. The average January temperature is —46° F and the river is frozen from Nov. 12 to June io in most years.
Occupations.—The Skoptsi, an exiled religious sect, settled in Yakutsk in the '6os of the 19th century and introduced agri culture in the neighbourhood of Olekminsk and Yakutsk. The clean, well-built Skoptsi villages are in striking contrast to the dirty Yakutsk settlements. Barley occupies 53%, spring rye 27% and wheat I I% of the grain harvest. Potatoes, turnips and cab bages thrive and cultivation is slowly spreading in the alluvial patches of the Lena and Aldan, though the disturbed post-1917 conditions have temporarily checked progress. The limit of culti vation here extends to 63.5° N. and during 1898-1917 the sown area was trebled, many of the Yakuts sowing patches of grain.
Meadowland is important, and 725,000 tons of hay were raised in 1925-26. Cattle and horse breeding is successful as far north as Yakutsk; both horses and cattle are short, long-haired and very hardy. The milk yield is small, but of good quality. There are no sheep or pigs. Cattle-breeding would be much improved by better attention to winter quarters and food : the animals are crowded in insanitary huts, and plague often spreads.