Skating’s nursery…: World’s second coldest area, ice sports a survival game here

The materials for ice sports are expensive, so they make skateboards by joining metal pipes and planks. Photo: Abid Butt

This picture of children practicing skateboarding in minus 14 degree temperature is of Dras. Children learn snow skating, skiing and ice hockey at the age of three to four in the world’s second coldest inhabited area after Siberia. Local resident Zahoor Ahmed says, the first step of the children falls on the snow. There is snow from 5 to 10 feet in the courtyard, in which there is play and play.

It is also a survival game for the people here. That is, if you want to stay alive, you have to make snow a companion. The materials for ice sports are expensive, so they make skateboards by joining metal pipes and planks. Learning from them, they become champions while falling. Most of the players in the country’s women’s ice hockey team are from here.

Girls are also not behind.

Girls actively participate in skating-skiing. They participate in ice hockey tournaments. The temperature of the area reaches minus 60 degrees in winter, but children and young people freely enjoy ice sports.