This remarkable feat was made possible due to the construction of a large year-round greenhouse near the city of Yakutsk by Sayuri company, using the technologies supplied by Hokkaido Corporation and with the backing of Hokkaido Bank; the total sum of Japanese investments in this project reaches up to $21.7 million.
Aisen Nikolaev, the mayor of Yakutsk, praised this development, pointing out that previously during winter the city had to rely either on somewhat expensive vegetables delivered from Russia’s Krasnodar region or Chinese vegetable exports of inferior quality.
"When I first heard that you can grow greenhouse vegetables in large quantities in Yakutsk winter, with temperatures dropping to minus 40-50 degrees Celsius, I just smiled skeptically. When I saw the calculations and economic justification of the project, I began pondering the idea. And after I met with Japanese engineers, I believed that it was possible. Yesterday, on December 19, I collected the first tomato," the mayor wrote on his Facebook page.
It should be noted that a similar greenhouse has been opened near the city of Khabarovsk by a joint Russo-Japanese company called JGC Evergreen in April 2016.
