Moscow – Arctic weather so frigid that even winter-hardened Russians complained gripped Moscow and much of the rest of the country for a third day Wednesday.
At least two dozen people reportedly died of exposure nationwide, and Russians used a record amount of electricity to keep warm.
Temperatures dropped to 22 degrees below zero overnight, Moscow’s First Deputy Mayor Pyotr Aksyonov said in televised comments. By early today, the cold was expected to reach minus-31 or even lower.
Twelve people died of exposure in the Novgorod region, northwest of Moscow, and two in the capital, the Interfax news agency said.
In the Volgograd region, about 550 miles southeast of Moscow and less accustomed to such cold, 10 people died, ITAR-Tass reported.
In Moscow, where a building boom is in swing and gray streets of the Soviet era have turned into glitzy thoroughfares festooned with lights, electricity consumption reached a record of more than 15,300 megawatts, utility officials said.
The cold snap coincided with today’s Russian Orthodox holiday of the Epiphany, which tradition says ushers in a cold period known as the Epiphany Frosts.
