Siberia -71°

-71° is the temperature reached in Yakutia, the coldest inhabited place on Earth. Simone Moro, an expert in climbing eight thousand peaks in winter, succeeded in the breathtaking feat of climbing the highest peak, Pic Pobeda, in February 2018. The feat that Simone Moro completed in the winter of 2018 is emblematic of his entire exceptional career and, at the same time, marks a turning point. In over thirty years of mountaineering, in fact, Moro has chosen not to focus on the what - summit, altitude, record - but on the how. Or rather on the sense of dealing with Nature. A meaning he found in two words: "cold" and "exploration". The ascents in winter have always allowed him to delve not only into places, but above all into the depths of himself. This explains why Moro, discovering by chance that Yakutia, in Siberia, is the inhabited region where the lowest temperatures on the planet are reached, impulsively decided to go and get to know it and then climb its highest peak, the Pic (or Gora) Pobeda. In this exciting book his story unfolds which has the flavor of a Jules Verne adventure or the chronicles of a great explorer. It is not trivial to prepare the journey to this very remote and poorly connected land, to penetrate which you need motivated companions, special equipment to protect yourself from the frost and a guide who knows the local populations. But when you get there the surprises surpass your imagination: expanses of ice crossed by solitary truckers, immense forests, and also a lot of life - gold diggers and fur hunters -, a lot of "frozen normality" - those who sell fish at the market that freeze directly on the bench, those who don't have a heated garage keep the car engine running for three consecutive months - and a lot of history, like that of the gulags and the horrific Road of Bones. Naturally, with Simone Moro and Tamara Lunger, finally, the breathtaking conquest of Pic Pobeda cannot be missed, a 3003 meter peak which, between the cold and the difficulty, puts them to the test more than some Himalayan eight thousanders, magnificently crowning an undertaking which it's a great exploration of the world and also of oneself.