As 2025 was coming to an end, a group of residents from Yakutsk, the capital of Russia’s Sakha (Yakutia) republic, braved frigid temperatures of minus 40 degrees Celsius to make their way to the offices of the local main newspaper.

On the steps of Yakutsk Vecherniy, they filmed a brief 12-second clip that quickly gained traction on the Sakha internet.

“We are here at the Yakutsk Vecherniy office for an important reason: to clarify a matter,” a man said to the camera, pulling a lilac necktie from his jacket pocket.

“It’s the end of the year, folks,” he stated, shaking the tie vigorously.

This performance alluded to a bet made by Aysen Nikolaev, the head of Sakha, with the editor-in-chief of Yakutsk Vecherniy in 2019. Nikolaev had promised to eat his tie if his administration failed to construct a bridge across the Lena River, which separates Yakutsk from the rest of Russia.

Six years later, the bridge still remains unbuilt.

The absence of a bridge connecting the two sides of the world’s 11th longest river leaves Yakutsk, a city with a population of over 350,000, isolated from the rest of Russia for nearly half the year. This isolation denies thousands of residents access to essential services found only in the capital of this resource-rich region.

Every year, this situation forces hundreds to attempt risky crossings over unstable ice, often at the peril of their lives.

Yakutsk holds the title of the coldest major city on Earth, with average January temperatures hovering around minus 42 degrees Celsius. The extreme winter conditions attract both Russian and international endurance athletes and bloggers, who share their experiences of surviving the harsh Yakutsk winter, accumulating millions of views online.

However, for local residents, these brutal winters are often the only opportunity for overland travel to the rest of the country. To the west of Yakutsk, frozen wetlands allow the Vilyuy Highway to connect to the city, while to the east, the Lena River freezes solid enough to permit crossing by vehicles or on foot.

As spring temperatures rise, this crucial connection vanishes, effectively isolating the capital as an island from the rest of Russia, surrounded by the immense Lena River.

During the summer months, ferries do operate across the Lena, but they are insufficient to handle the demand for essential goods, fuel, and passenger travel into Yakutsk.

“The river fleet, like many enterprises in the republic, operates at a loss, so ferries have not been upgraded in years, nor has their number increased,” said activist Sargylana Kondakova, who spent two decades living in Yakutsk before moving abroad.

“Crossing the Lena always brings stress and uncertainty — it’s just part of daily life. If I had the choice not to cross the river, I wouldn’t,” she added.

For residents of what Yakutians refer to as the across-the-river uluses (districts), being able to access the capital can be a matter of life or death. Almost all critical medical services, including MRI and CT scans, are available only in Yakutsk hospitals.

“Long waits for the ferry during the navigation season are a challenge,” shared a woman from an ulus on the Lena’s right bank with The Moscow Times.

“Only those who have stood in that long queue of cars can truly understand what it’s like for vehicles with newborns, elderly patients recuperating from surgery, and weary, frustrated drivers to bake in the summer heat for hours,” she added, speaking under the condition of anonymity.

Official ferry operations close during shoulder seasons, leaving privately operated hovercrafts and icebreaker-assisted ferries as the sole means of transport between the two shores.

“Twice a year, we are without fresh fruits or vegetables because shipments can’t reach the capital. Twice a year, we face the exorbitant costs imposed by the monopolies that control the crossings,” a female resident of Yakutsk explained to The Moscow Times.

Her job often requires her to travel from Yakutsk to nearby settlements across the river with little notice.

Every spring and fall, she pays anywhere from 5,000 rubles ($65) to 10,000 rubles ($130) for a one-way river crossing — a steep price for residents of Yakutsk, where the average monthly salary is around 60,000 rubles ($780).

Those unable to afford this payment risk their lives crossing the river on foot or by car over precarious ice.

“I remember during my university days in Yakutsk, many friends from the opposite bank crossed on foot because they had no money,” the woman from a right bank ulus reminisced.

“I once had to cross a river in Sakha, though not the Lena, over thin ice. I’ll always remember the black water beneath the fragile ice beneath my feet,” she remarked.

Each year, reports of cars sinking and people losing their lives after falling through the ice surface are common in local news. Locals believe this situation will persist until a bridge is built or people become affluent enough to prioritize safety over danger.

The notion of constructing a bridge over the Lena River was first proposed in the late 1980s, but the collapse of the Soviet Union put a halt to those plans.

The idea resurfaced in 2012 when then-President Yegor Borisov vowed to complete the Lena Bridge by 2016.

However, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, the initiative was put on hold again as federal authorities allegedly diverted funds to construct the Crimean Bridge.

When Borisov’s successor Nikolaev made his infamous wager in 2019, the estimated cost of the bridge project was 65 billion rubles ($855 million).

By the time the first components of the bridge’s support structure were installed in 2024, the expense had spiraled to 130 billion rubles ($1.7 billion).

“The Lena Bridge is a technically complex structure. The temperature fluctuations alone are extreme: summer can see highs of 40 degrees Celsius while winter can plummet to minus 60 degrees,” stated Viliua Choinova, an activist and environmental engineer from Sakha.

“Typical engineering projects are designed to withstand the most extreme parameters — maximum and minimum loads, pressure, humidity, and more. In our case, we face all of these extremes simultaneously,” Choinova explained.

She compared the Lena Bridge endeavor to the Brooklyn Bridge, another critical infrastructure project constructed using innovative technology.

Over the years, Sakha officials have cited numerous reasons for the delays in construction, such as the 2012 financial crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the project’s perceived economic impracticality given the region’s relatively small population.

“We’re constantly reminded that fewer than a million people live here,” activist Choinova noted. “But how can we attract people to the region without bridges, roads, or basic infrastructure?”

The republic of Sakha is one of the largest diamond producers in the world and a significant source of antimony, gold, silver, and other precious metals for both domestic and global markets.

However, the taxation system for extractive industries in Russia predominantly benefits the federal government in Moscow, leaving Sakha’s government short on funds to invest in large-scale infrastructure projects.

Last year, Sakha’s government suggested it could only allocate 27.3 billion rubles ($360,000) for the bridge project, down from an earlier estimate of 43.3 billion rubles ($560,000), highlighting the necessity for additional financing from private investors or the federal government.

VIS Group, the construction company responsible for building the bridge and tied to billionaire Arkady Rotenberg, a close ally of Putin, had been expected to provide 82.5 billion rubles ($1.1 billion), but media reports indicate that it is also struggling to finance the project.

“If the project is to continue over the next two years, it needs to be financed from the federal budget, but we all know where federal funds are being directed right now,” Kondakova asserted, referencing Russia’s massive financial commitment to the war in Ukraine.

“As long as this conflict continues, it seems unrealistic to expect the completion of this megaproject. People have lost interest in the bridge. Their current priorities are finding food and paying for their children’s education,” Kondakova lamented.

Residents still living in the region echoed her feelings.

“Our leader Il Darkhan is working tirelessly to satisfy the federal center. He has sent numerous young men to the military operation and given away many of our resources, yet he still cannot build a single bridge for us,” a woman from Yakutsk expressed.

“I think most have stopped caring about the project’s future because many do not believe it will ever come to fruition in their lifetime,” she concluded.