Lena River Embankment

The Lena is the great fact of Yakutsk's geography. The city sits on the western bank, and the riverfront is where locals come for a walk and a view in summer, and where the road over the ice begins in winter. The embankment near the centre has been tidied up in recent years with benches and a promenade.

Boats run upriver and downriver from the port at Yakutsk in the summer months. The most spectacular short trip is to the Lena Pillars, a stretch of vertical rock cliffs about 200 km upstream — too far for a casual outing but the centrepiece of any organised river cruise.

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From late October to April the Lena freezes solid enough to support trucks, and a temporary winter road links Yakutsk with Nizhny Bestyakh on the eastern bank. In summer the same crossing is done by ferries. The river is one of the longest in the world and Yakutsk has no permanent bridge.

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