Twenty four people froze to death in western Russia Wednesday, and Moscow switched to a "strict" energy conservation regime.

In the northwest Russian region of Novgorod around 550 kilometersmiles) northwest of Moscow, 12 people, most of them homeless, died of hypothermia overnight, the Interfax news agency said.

Separately, authorities collected the bodies of 10 people found on the streets of Volgograd 1,070 kilometers (666 miles) southeast of Moscow, the ITAR-TASS news agency reported.

Eight of the Volgograd victims were homeless while the bodies of two young men who had apparently been intoxicated were found at separate bus stops in the city, the report said, adding that 17 people were hospitalized in Volgograd because of exposure to the cold.

In Moscow, city health officials said that two people died of hypothermia overnight Tuesday on the streets of the Russian capital and 15 others were hospitalized because of the cold as forecasters warned temperatures would drop even further.

Students at state primary schools were allowed to stay home at parents' discretion and the stalwart Kremlin ceremonial guard service said it may halve shifts around the eternal flame at the foot of the Kremlin walls to 30 minutes because of the freezing temperatures.

Television news broadcast footage of homeless people crouched or sprawled over steam vents or huddling in entrances to train stations to keep warm and the ITAR-TASS news agency said around 40 trolley buses stalled overnight in Moscow as a result of the freezing temperatures.

Temperatures overnight dropped to minus 33 C in Moscow and even lower in the surrounding region. They were expected to drop even further, to below minus 37 C, on Thursday night.

On Wednesday, the Siberian city of Yakutsk experienced minus 54 degrees C (minus 65 F).

Some 1,000 people in the town of Tomilino near Moscow spent the night without heating and hot water after their area's heating system broke down, RIA Novosti quoted a spokesman for the emergencies ministry as saying.

Among the buildings deprived of heating was a clinic, whose staff and 54 patients were evacuated.

Several thousand people in Novgorod were also left without heating late Wednesday, RIA Novosti reported, quoting an official with the mergencies ministry's local branch.

More than 200 factories in the Moscow area were told they would suffer power cuts to conserve energy and the business daily Vedomosti said that from Wednesday Moscow was "switching to a strict energy conservation regime."

This would mean targeted power cutbacks to various businesses as well as turning off electricity for billboard advertisements, casinos and gaming halls housed in buildings adorned with piles of neon lights and at construction sites that use powerful floodlights for nighttime work.

Moscow city administration late Wednesday called on the capital's businesses to send their employees home on Thursday and Friday, when the cold is expected to be particularly bitter, and to have them work on Saturday and Sunday instead, ITAR-TASS reported.

This "could significantly lower the pressure on Moscows' power grid during the great cold," ITAR-TASS quoted first deputy mayor Pyotr Aksyonov as saying.

The current cold snap started when Arctic air from Siberia swept over the western "European" part of Russia, home to most of the country's population.

In the west Siberian province of Khanty-Mansiysk authorities officially pronounced the cancellation of a traditional Epiphany ritual that involves taking a dip in local rivers.

Meanwhile several European countries experienced drops in gas supplies from Russia, the source of about a quarter of the European Union's gas, as authorities here concentrated on meeting domestic heating demand.

The state gas monopoly Gazprom said it was fulfilling all agreed contracts with European countries, but officials conceded the firm might not meet additional demands over and above agreed contracts.

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