ICE HARVESTING: A villager throws hot water into the air while harvesting ice from a local lake near the settlement of Oy, some 70 km south of Yakutsk, with the air temperature at about minus 41 degrees Celsius. Many people in the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic, Russia, depend on melted water as there is no other way to supply water due to extremely cold winter temperatures in the permafrost-covered region. — AFP