... Moscow's streets between November and late January, most of them homeless, said Vladimir Petrosyan, head of City Hall's social protection department, Itar-Tass reported. Conditions are expected to grow far more dangerous in the next week, as the Moscow weather bureau forecasts that temperatures will plunge as far as minus 24 degrees Celsius — hitting a low of minus 30 C on Sunday night. But hypothermia deaths in Moscow have declined dramatically in recent years, with 32 having died last year...

A one-day-old child was left on the ground outside a Moscow apartment building despite a temperature of minus 20 C, before being found and picked up by a passerby. A one-day-old child was left on the ground outside a Moscow apartment building despite a temperature of minus 20 C, before being found and picked up by a passerby, Life News reported. A closed-circuit camera captured images of a woman placing the child on the ground at 6:15 a.m. on Tuesday. Only an hour later did a passing kindergarten...

... tea, and along the route we will also try to organize some tea." He said organizers were hoping to keep the rally at Bolotnaya Ploshchad at the end of the 1.5-kilometer march as short as possible — perhaps just 30 to 40 minutes. The federal weather service predicts temperatures at minus 12 C to minus 17 C during the day Saturday. "We will discuss in detail every aspect related to weather conditions when the organizing committee meets" on Tuesday, said Left Front leader Sergei Udaltsov...

... — up 41 percent from 2010. Also on Wednesday, Gazprom denied reports that it reduced supplies to Europe to make more gas available in parts of Russia hit by a severe cold snap. "Despite increased natural gas consumption in Russia amid freezing weather, Gazprom continues to execute its contract obligations to European customers," the company said in a separate statement. Western Europe in general is heavily dependent on Russian gas. Italy relies on imports for about 80 percent of its gas...

... legs "stand."  Лошадь стоит в поле. (A horse is standing in the field.) Рядом стоит корова (A cow is standing next to it). Dog and cats are in-between: They can stand, sit and lie — preferably on command, of course. When time, weather conditions or water stop moving, they "stand" in Russian. This is easy for English speakers to remember, since when time isn't running out, it's standing still, and if the water doesn't run down your drain, you have a problem with standing...

... counter a shortfall created by idled nuclear capacity in Japan last year. Japan boosted imports of LNG to a record in 2011 after the disaster at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi reactor in March led to the shutdown of most of its atomic plants. Colder than usual weather in most of Europe earlier this month boosted demand for Russian gas. While rejecting calls for extra gas exports amid freezing weather at home in the run-up to a presidential election in March, Gazprom has said it is supplying gas to Europe at...

... at Skolkovo that will focus on development of cloud infrastructure solutions and Big Data analytics technologies for bioinformatics and energy efficiency. (MT) Crude oil exports from the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk were halted Monday due to stormy weather, a Transneft spokesman said Wednesday. (Reuters)

... you can feel it move up and down as a shock wave travels through the pathway. At the bridge's head there are stairs to the picturesque newly constructed embankment, built with local marble from the nearby Ural Mountains. If you have time or the weather is poor, head across the street from the bridge to the City Duma, a museum of natural history (2 Ulitsa Lenina; +7 3452-46-80-71; museum.ru/M1105 ). The museum is home to an impressive, complete mammoth skeleton, as well as a beautiful butterfly...

... factories. "Heat is being generated by old Soviet boilers built in the 1950s and 60s that have very low energy conversion efficiency, about half of the European level," Maslichenko said. Boilers lack sensors and controls to adjust to changing weather conditions, leading to excessive heating in warm weather. Further down the chain, hot water moves through poorly insulated pipes to buildings that also lack flexible controls. Finally, heat is wasted in leaky Soviet-era apartment blocks, which...

... Pushkin Square that day. A representative said the party had already received permission from City Hall and expected 1,500 supporters to attend. Flamboyant party boss Vladimir Zhirinovsky is running for president for a fourth time this year. But cold weather could cause potential marchers on all sides to stay home. Daytime highs of minus 11 to minus 15 degrees Celsius are expected through Feb. 1, according to the federal weather bureau. The opposition and City Hall had traded a number of proposals...

... Varna and Burgas have been closed due to wind. Serbia officials said they were prepared to use explosives to break ice on the Ibar and Danube rivers. Italy took emergency measures Monday to deal with critical shortages of Russian gas following the icy weather. Russia reduced flow across Ukraine last week, citing domestic demand. (Reuters)

... on the mountain, the world's second-highest, since late December and were hoping to make a summit push in mid-March. Naiknam Karim said one of the climbers died Monday in base camp from breathing difficulties. He says the team was waiting for better weather before being flown from base camp by helicopter. Winter ascents of the world's 14 highest mountains are some of the most prized achievements left in climbing. (AP)

... Vedomosti. First tests on grapevines in Krasnodar's Taman region are showing a 30 percent loss, said Fanagoria chief agronomist Pavel Kurilo. Southern Wine Company general director Andrei Kulko sees losses hitting 50 percent, due to minus-20-degree-Celsius weather and strong winds over the last month — the likes of which he has never seen in his 25 years in the business. Kulko said the current situation gives cause for concern not just for the 2012 harvest, but also for the wineries overall. Rebuilding...

... world-renowned chess champion Gary Kasparov, and was attended by anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny and environmental activist Yevgenia Chirikova. The program for the rally — which will follow a 1.5-kilometer march — has been cut short due to weather, which is forecast to be brutally cold. Chosen by lot, different movements will march in separate sections at the rally with nonpartisan groups going first, liberals second, and right-wing nationalist movements and leftist activists going last...

... for medicine, personal hygiene products, clothes and food for those living on the street. The fund cannot finance its programs while its accounts are blocked, Glinka said. "Closing [them] without telling us is rather cruel, considering the frigid weather in Moscow right now," Glinka said. 179742

... Saturday. Nonetheless, "Gazprom isn't currently able to meet the additional gas volumes requested by our partners in Western Europe," Kruglov said. The state-run company reduced deliveries to Europe by 10 percent for several days because of cold weather and is now fully delivering contracted volumes, RIA-Novosti reported, citing Kruglov. Supplies were reduced to Poland, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and Italy, European Commission spokeswoman Marlene Holzner told reporters...

... services. They also use 30 percent less electricity than the current generation of electric trains in use in Russia. The Swallow variant was built for Russia's wider 1,520-millimeter-gauge tracks and is specially equipped to cope with the country's extreme weather conditions. Siemens presented its first German-built trains to Russian Railways vice president Valentin Gapanovich at its plant in Krefeld, Germany, on Jan. 27. The trains will begin arriving in Russia at the port of Ust Luga port in March. The...

... an Eastern European sales spike, Bloomberg reported Friday. Russian light-beer production rose 17.6 percent last month, according to the State Statistics Service. That marks a recovery from a poor third quarter of 2011 as the disappointing summer weather held back sales. Carlsberg said in October that it saw its Eastern European unit's beer sales fall 9 percent compared with the same period in 2010. SABMiller, which sells Miller, Grolsch, Pilsner and Kozel, said it saw its sales fall 6 percent...

... investors will face larger losses when the bubble eventually bursts. Such risk-return calculations can be applied to the Feb. 4 rally to be held in Moscow in support of free and fair elections. Its organizers are clearly taking a major risk. If the weather stays cold, if the sense of euphoria engendered by the earlier protests wears out — or if Muscovites, who have children, families and jobs, and face all the usual pressures of middle-class life, suffer a bout of protest fatigue — the...

... and unless you come early in the morning the first hour after it has reopened can be the best time to get in as quickly as possible. The park also plans to have cross-country ski routes of 1 and 3 kilometers, but these will only be possible once the weather goes below minus 4 degrees Celsius, which is predicted for this week. The rink also has an ice hockey rink, a children's area and a figure-skating rink, and the park has its own figure skating school, where one-on-one lessons cost 1,200 rubles...