A Novosibirsk resident shows how really cold it is in his city by pouring a pot of boiling water into the air from one of the top floors of his apartment building, which turned immediately into a cloud of frozen droplets.

Severe frost has affected large parts of Russia in December. In the far eastern regions of the country temperatures have fallen to minus 50 degrees Celsius, with minus 20 degrees Celsius recorded in central Russia.

Meteorologists say that for some regions such low temperatures have not been recorded for more than half a century.