Central Square, Mirny Live Cam

The central square of Mirny, a diamond mining town in the Sakha Republic in eastern Russia, lies under this webcam. The Zarnitsa hotel closes the far side of the square, and in winter a lit tree stands in the middle of the snow.

The town of about 37,000 people grew up around the Mir pipe, an open pit worked from the 1950s on the edge of the built-up area. The square is the place where town events are held: ice sculptures and the tree in winter, flowerbeds and a playground in the short summer.

Winter temperatures here fall well below minus forty and the square is floodlit for most of the working day, because daylight lasts only a few hours in December. The picture carries the operator's date and time along the top.