Animals at zoos across Russia are being given shots, or in some cases buckets, of vodka to keep them warm as temperatures in the European part of the country plunged towards an exceptional -40°C (-40°F).

In the ancient town of Yaroslavl, 100 miles north of Moscow, a travelling circus said it had been forced to start giving its trio of Indian elephants vodka mixed with water in buckets as the mercury dipped. [Tony's note: Apparently nobody ever told the workers that alcohol simply stimulates blood vessel dilation at the surface of the skin, creating a feeling of warmth. This process speeds up heat loss and makes it harder to stay warm.]

In Lipetsk, where meteorologists recorded temperatures of -32°C (-25°F), the zoo's contingent of macaques was being fortified with cheap French table wine three times a day and in other zoos camels, wild boars and reindeer were being given regular shots of vodka to stave off the chill.

People who clutched their mobile phones to their ears for too long have been taken to hospital with frostbite; homeless people have frozen to death where they slumped and some of Moscow's famously bright lights have had to be temporarily turned off as the city consumes record amounts of electricity and moves to selective rationing.

With the temperature hovering around -40°C (-22°F) yesterday, Moscow, a city of 12 million people, was eerily quiet with locals saying they had not experienced such extreme cold for half a century. The coldest temperature recorded in Moscow, of -42°C (-43.6°F), was recorded in 1940 and experts said that the current Arctic conditions could last until the end of the month, with the temperature steadily dropping towards minus -40°C (-22°F) as the week progresses.

Moscow's infamous traffic jams vanished into the icy air as people left their cars at home and shops, bars and restaurants saw custom plunge.

With nostril hair freezing on impact with the outside air and ice quickly forming on eye lashes, pavements were also less crowded than usual and foyers of metro stations were crowded with the dispossessed who were, exceptionally, allowed to sleep in the subway system overnight.

The extreme cold - which is fierce even by Russian standards - had serious human consequences. Russian media said the number of people to die from hypothermia in Moscow since October had shot up to 109, with at least 24 people dying of exposure in the past 24 hours. In the Volga region a minibus on its way to Moscow crashed through the ice of a frozen river as it tried to cross, killing six passengers. The cold caused concrete road bridges to crack and some villages in remote regions were left without heat or light.

Russia's efforts to weather the cold snap were felt further west with Hungary and Italy reporting they were receiving less Russian gas and were being forced to dip into their own reserves. Gazprom, Russia's energy monopoly, admitted it was diverting gas to its domestic customers because of the freezing temperatures. It said Moscow alone was receiving 40 percent more gas than usual. However, Gazprom insisted it was strictly fulfilling the terms of its contracts with European customers.