It was bitter cold outside the doors of Morgue No. 2, and Nina Yakovleva was in no mood for fund-raising.


But a full week had elapsed since her 55-year-old husband died of a heart attack at a Moscow bus stop, and the school teacher wanted only one thing: to bury him. Squeezing 1 million rubles ($312) out of her 62,000-ruble monthly salary will only be one step on a journey that began when she located her husband's half-naked body on the floor of a Moscow morgue and will end only when she slips the last banknotes into an undertaker's hands.


"We're giving her what we can," said her sister, Natasha, who helped arrange the body's transfer from a private morgue, which was charging 3 million rubles. "But it's already up to 800,000 rubles, and who knows what they'll want at the cemetery."


For generations, Russians have dealt with burial services through a combination of cajoling and petty bribery, supplementing standard fees with cash tips and bottles of vodka. Some city morgues even have counterintelligence services to combat the bribery problem. But some morticians' demands have become so outrageous that the Moscow city prosecutor has begun an investigation of mortuary price-gouging.


"It's getting so ordinary working people are virtually unable to bury their dead," said Raisa Yarumenko, 53, who was bringing red carnations to her brother-in-law's funeral, which she said cost the equivalent of $1,000. Since many customers strike deals directly with mortuary employees, they are often vulnerable to price inflation, she said.


Under communism, Russian burials were state-subsidized and routinely carried out by municipal agencies. Now, the most basic services are increasingly expensive, and the vodka-bottle gratuity has appreciated so rapidly that some desperate Russians have found themselves stuck in an apartment with the body of a loved one, unable to afford a hearse.


One such charge against City Morgue No. 2 launched the city investigation, said Alexander Statsenko, a city prosecutor for enforcement of laws on social issues. V. Mysnikova, a Moscow woman, filed an official complaint with the prosecutor's office this fall, after a morgue worker demanded "a big sum" of money in order to remove her son's dead body and prepare it for burial. When she arrived at the morgue, workers claimed the fee had not been paid, Statsenko said.


Mortuary officials at Morgue No. 2 said Mysnikova paid the first sum to an ambulance service unrelated to their morgue, so the violation was on the part of private ambulance drivers. Three different agencies provide transportation to Morgue No. 2, said head doctor Oleg Kriger.


Although the Mysnikova complaint was the first such charge the city prosecutor had received, officials decided "on our own initiative" to look into the question, Statsenko said. The investigation began last Thursday and should continue for two weeks, while city investigators check into Moscow's six main morgues and an ever-multiplying number of private concerns, he said. Although the city prosecutor's office may not be able to stamp out price-gouging, the investigation could at least result in more scrupulous financial documentation, so that supervisors could monitor their staff, he said. In the Mysnikova case, the receipt for mortician's services had no specific sum written on it, making prosecution impossible, he said.


Boris Nikolayev, head mortician at Morgue No. 2, said prices depend on the initial state of the body, and that the highest price his department had charged was 1 million rubles. He said bribery was unheard of in his department, and that exorbitant prices were only paid for special services.


But lately, demands have become high enough to warrant municipal attention. One American executive, who asked not to be named, said his Russian girlfriend was asked to pay "a couple of thousand dollars in hard currency" to remove her grandmother's body from her apartment. Ultimately, the woman paid a smaller sum -- but not until after the body had lain in the apartment for days. he said.


Morgue directors all over the city last week -- while denying that bribes were accepted in their own establishments -- confirmed that corruption is a problem in their profession. Many added that the city's response should be to raise their salaries, not prosecute them.


"It's true that there is corruption," said Natalya Kynitskaya, who oversees the morgue at Hospital No. 3, 40 kilometers from Moscow. "Basically, these services should not be free. You shouldn't have to pay half a million rubles, but it is an expensive service."


Corpse removal service alone costs about 100,000 to 150,000 rubles per body, she added. Kynitskaya was not surprised that the government was investigating, since "people complain," but said bigger state subsidies would be a more constructive approach.