chuu's ♡

maybe you already know, maybe you don’t, but #save_yakutia & #saveyakutia are trending on twitter and here’s why.

one of the biggest regions of russia, yakutia, also known as sakha, is literally on fire. i’m sure you can find lots of threads on twt by those hashtags, but the main point is: taiga is burning and local government does practically nothing, refusing to accept help from other countries (and also leo di caprio for some reason?).

smoke pollution level is so high (>1300 AQI as seen on many screenshots across twitter) that people are basically suffocating. due to the lack of visibility, flights have been delayed both on arrival and departure from airport ‘yakutsk’. river navigation is also limited. local news sites publish photographs showing that the streets of yakutsk are completely shrouded in smoke, blocking out the sunlight.

articles (some in english, some in russian, so please use a translator to read!): the new york times article about sakha wildfires bbc news article the sunday times article on leo di caprio situation regional site, where you can see lots of articles on wildfires the siberian times article (you can find a lot more if you google ‘yakutia wildfires’)

big russian news outlets are basically silent, treating this situation as if it’s not that big of a deal, while thousands of people are on the verge of suffocating to death.

“O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note, To drown me in thy sister’s flood of tears. Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote; Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs, And as a bed I’ll take them and there lie, And in that glorious supposition think He gains by death that hath such means to die; Let Love, being light, be drowned if she sink!”