The M56 Kolyma Highway is a road through the Russian Far East. It connects Magadan and Yakutsk, and travels near the towns of Tomtor and Oymyakon (both claim the coldest inhabited place on earth outside of Antarctica). The average temperature in Oymyakon in January is -46°C, and in some areas, the ground experiences continuous permafrost. The first stretch was built by the inmates of the Sevvostlag labor camp in 1932. The construction continued (by inmates of gulag forced labour camps) until 1953. The bulk of the highway, particularly the sections between Khandyga and Magadan, is referred to as the Road of Bones because the bones of the people who died while constructing it were laid beneath or around the road. Today, the road is treated as a memorial.
