Deadly deep freeze grips Moscow

Cold weather so painful that even winter-hardened Russians complained about it has gripped Moscow and much of the rest of the country. At least two dozen people have reportedly died of exposure nationwide and Russians used a record amount of electricity to keep warm.

Temperatures dropped to -30C overnight, Moscow’s First Deputy Mayor Pyotr Aksyonov said yesterday in televised comments, and could go even lower today.

The ITAR-Tass news agency said the mercury could plunge to between -30C and -33C by dawn today. Commuters were urged to use public transport rather than cars, and many schools cancelled classes, it said.

ITAR-Tass added that conditions might relent slightly by noon tomorrow.

Two people died of hypothermia in a 24-hour period in the capital, bringing the death toll this winter to 109, the Interfax news agency reported. Twelve people died of exposure in the Novgorod region, northwest of Moscow, Interfax said.

In the Volgograd region, 550 miles south-east of Moscow and less accustomed to such cold, 10 people died of exposure and schools were shut, ITAR-Tass reported.

Over the previous day, electricity consumption nationwide hit 146,000 megawatts – a record high since the Soviet collapse 15 years ago, the head of national electricity monopoly RAO Unified Energy Systems, Anatoly Chubais, said in televised comments.

Electricity consumption in Moscow, where a construction boom is in full swing and the grey streets of the Soviet era have turned into glitzy thoroughfares festooned with bright lights, reached a record of more than 15,300 megawatts, RAO UES said in a statement.

Chubais said supplies of electricity to some industrial consumers would be limited but that neither residential buildings nor essential facilities such as hospitals would be affected, and the state-run TV station Rossiya reported that power shut off for some city billboards and construction sites.

Interfax said Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov ordered bazaars selling non-food items such as clothing shut.

Aksyonov urged Muscovites not to use electric heaters, saying the additional power use could strain the system.

Chubais, who faced criticism over a massive Moscow power cut last June, suggested that the state-controlled natural gas monopoly Gazprom could be partly to blame for any energy shortage during the cold spell since it cut supplies.

Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said the company was fulfilling all its obligations but that some industrial facilities would have to use reserves.

The cold snapped power cables for some trolley bus lines and forced authorities in the region surrounding Moscow to replace them with petrol-powered buses. Traffic was light in the capital’s normally jammed streets because many motorists could not start their cars.

Taxi-driver Pavel Limonov told Rossiya he started his car every two hours overnight to ensure he could work.

The cold snap coincided with the Russian Orthodox holiday of the Epiphany, which falls today and which tradition says ushers in a cold period known as the Epiphany Frosts.

Some particularly hardy Russians celebrate Epiphany by plunging into rivers and ponds to cleanse themselves with water deemed holy for the day. Authorities in one northern region, Khanty-Mansiisk, advised against following that ritual this year, Channel One television reported.