Attila and Kinga Bertici, the two members of the Romanian expedition Hello Siberia, successfully drove over 11,000 kilometers from Romania to the coldest village on Earth in a Dacia Duster. They reached their destination - the village of Oymyakon, in Russia's Yakutia region, on the morning of January 9. The village is reputed to be the “coldest permanently settled area in the world.”

The two arrived at a temperature of -47 degrees Celsius, Attila Bertici told HotNews.ro. There, they also met the mayor of the 590-inhabitant locality.

They left from Satu Mare, in northern Romania, and traveled some 11,500 km, in an expedition dotted with various adventures: their ID cards and bank cards were stolen, while the last 200 km proved difficult because of travel through areas where temperatures as low as -50 degrees really tested their vehicle.

"The car started to behave very strangely below -43 degrees. We had no phone signal and, at -47, the car just wanted to get up in the air like a helicopter. Only frrrrr, drrrrr loud noises, I did not know what was happening, I caught a hill where the temperature was -40 everything became normal again," Attila Bertic wrote in a Facebook post on January 8.

“It is incredibly cold at -50. I picked up the luggage without putting on the mittens, so I could close the car door, and I walked ten meters to the door of the house we stay in; I thought my hand would break from the cold,” Bertici told Hotnews.ro.

Over the past month, the maximum temperature in Oymyakon did not go past -29 degrees Celsius, while the minimum dropped even bellow – 50 degrees.

Attila and Kinga Bertici are not the first Romanians to reach Oymyakon but they are the first ones to reach the village with only one car, a Dacia Duster, and not part of a larger group, which means that they couldn't count on help if anything went wrong.

Upon reaching Oymyakon, the two visited a small museum and received a diploma from the locality’s mayor, who told them that the place had been visited in time by tourists from 70 countries.

The expedition of Attila and Kinga Bertici went viral on YouTube, where the two have posted videos about their trip and the sites they have seen. Some videos have gathered more than 80,000 views and 500 comments.

They will start their trip back to Romania on January 10.

(Photo: Hello Siberia Expedition Facebook Page)

editor@romania-insider.com