MOSCOW — In Russia, complaining about the cold in winter is like arguing with the sun for rising -- an exercise for fools, not to mention wimps.
So as the nation staggered in the grip of a fierce Arctic cold wave that stretched from Finland to Japan, the capital braced for a predicted low of minus 35 degrees early today with characteristic defiance: Dozens of Muscovites stripped down to their bathing suits at midnight and plunged into a tributary of the Moscow River.
"God bless Russia!" 28-year-old Gennady Mordvintsev screamed as he dived into a hole in the ice. He emerged, dripping and frosting over quickly, several minutes later.
"This is why Americans can't understand what a Russian is," boomed Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky, stuffed in a fur coat and hat and surrounded by bodyguards after his own encounter with the water. "We've been doing this for a thousand years!"
The Orthodox holiday of Epiphany was what drew dozens of swimmers out to the water's edge. But on any given Saturday night, Russians can be seen padding down to the river to dip into the icy water, or stumbling out of their wood-fired \o7banyas, \f7the Russian version of saunas\o7,\f7 to plunge headlong and naked into the snow.
All week, there have been frequent reminders that this is the land that left the armies of Napoleon and Hitler foundering in its forbidding frosts.
While Moscow had already hit minus 22 by mid-evening Wednesday, the temperature had sunk to minus 63 in Yakutsk and minus 70 in the Evenk Autonomous Area of Siberia. Power consumption in the capital reached a record 15,760 megawatts by 6 p.m., nearly three times what Los Angeles uses on its hottest summer days.
Twelve people had died of exposure in the Novgorod region by Wednesday, authorities said, and about 100 people had to be evacuated from the village of Yeletsky in the north-central region of Komi when a heating plant failed at 53 degrees below zero.
"When it's sunny and minus 50, it's one thing. Children can easily go for a walk. But this is a completely different thing -- we have a snowstorm and a hurricane going on here, and it was minus 39," said Olga Korolyova, head of administration in Yeletsky.
An eerie, hazy gloom settled over Moscow, as city officials dimmed some streetlights and kiosks to save power, and frozen moisture in the air formed a biting haze, finer than sleet and popularly known as "ice needles."
