On February 22, 2022, driver Yegor Tallayev zipped through the industrial suburbs of Yakutsk, the capital of the remote Russian republic of Sakha. Also known as Yakutia, the area is home to the coldest permanently inhabited place on Earth, and, at just minus 24 degrees Celsius (minus 11.2 degrees Fahrenheit), it was a comparatively balmy day. Tallayev took a right turn at a fork and headed downhill, until we were driving directly on the icy surface of the Lena, one of the world’s longest rivers.
The ice road looked like a normal two-lane highway, complete with road signs, and was divided by a snowy patch with a couple of u-turn pockets. Along the 16 kilometer route to the opposite river bank, we spotted laborers in orange jackets mending the road by pumping water from an ice hole onto the surface, where it froze in no time: during Yakutian winters, you can throw water into the air and watch it freeze solid before it hits the ground.
Tallayev sped up. The frozen river, he explained, was outside of the jurisdiction of the regular traffic cops. In any case, he said, “We have no accidents here.”
Up the high bank of the river and through a village, we reached our destination: Nizhny Bestyakh railway station, the ultimate end of the line, built in 2011 to connect Yakutsk with Russia’s railway network. From here, it takes several days by train to get to the next large Russian city in either direction. For the right fare, Tallayev will take passengers on the multi-day trip by car. From time to time, he will even collect three or four passengers and drive to Heihe, a Chinese border city 1,800 kilometers away, which Russians can enter without a visa. He charges around 5,000 rubles (about $80) per passenger for such a trip, which takes around 40 hours of driving.
Tallayev is a driver with inDriver, a ride-hailing app developed in Yakutsk in 2012. The app connects riders with drivers, similar to Uber or Yandex Go, Russia’s most popular taxi app. But inDriver was very much designed for Yakutia: Its main point of difference is that it allows riders and drivers to haggle over prices. It also accommodates long journeys and accepts payments only in cash.