In the northwest Russian region of Novgorod around 550 kilometers 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 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 hospitalised in Volgograd because of exposure to the cold.
In Moscow, city health officials said that two people died of hypothermia overnight on the streets of the Russian capital and 15 others were hospitalised because of the cold as forecasters warned temperatures would drop even further.
Students at state primary schools were allowed to stay home at their 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.
Homeless suffer
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 were expected to drop further, with forecasters predicting they could reach as low as minus 36 C in the capital and minus 40 C in the surrounding region.
The Siberian city of Yakutsk meanwhile was experiencing minus 54 degrees C.
More than 200 factories in the Moscow area were told that they would have their power cut 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 has 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," said first deputy mayor Pyotr Aksyonov.
Toll rising
Before the announcement of the latest two deaths in Moscow, officials said that eight people died Tuesday across Russia as a result of the freezing weather, caused when Arctic air from Siberia swept over the western "European" part of Russia, home to most of the country's population.
In Russia's Volga region, six people drowned when the ice broke under a minibus that was crossing a frozen river near the city of Nizhny Novgorod.
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.
The MFB stock exchange, a secondary bourse that rents space in a building from another firm, suspended trading early on Tuesday after being among those warned of a possible power shortfall.