YAKUTSK, January 13. /TASS/. Participants in the Cold Conquerors expedition on Sunday left Yakutsk for the region’s Arctic districts to study areas with lowest temperatures, the expedition’s leader Vyacheslav Ipatyev told TASS.

"The project’s idea is to find new places in Yakutia with record low temperatures," he said. "Our two groups head for Yakutia’s coldest districts — Oymyakon and Verkhoyansk."

"The groups feature reporters, bloggers, photographers and experienced instructors," he continued. "Over two weeks they will live in tents and will register extremely low temperatures, which this season may drop to as low as minus 60 degrees."

Every group consists of three members, he added.

The explorers will measure temperature in compliance with standards of the Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (Roshydromet). Besides, the expedition leader added, they will take reindeer sleds to get to lowlands and measure temperature there. "All the data will be accumulated daily at the headquarters, and later on we shall be able to name the coldest spot," he went on.

The expedition participants will stay in tents. "The instructors are local reindeer herders, who will teach our teams the survival skills," he continued. "They [the crew] will learn to ice fish, to install loops to catch small animals and birds, to harvest ice, catch deer, and to start fire in the field."

The Cold Conquerors project is a unique experiment of volunteers. The project is supported by Yakutia’s Governor Aisen Nikolayev. The regional authorities hope the expedition will grow into an annual event, which will boost the tourism potential of Yakutia as the world’s coldest inhabited area.

"The exhibition will continue for a few years," the project’s leader concluded. "We hope to register inhabited areas with lowest temperatures, from where the regular meteorology information will be updated."