The decline of the Russian economy has contributed to a backlog of unpaid wages that's now officially put at more than five-billion dollars.

A BBC correspondent in Moscow says that many doctors, teachers and other state workers despair of ever getting their wages -- and those who do, find that the rouble buys less and less.

As winter bites in northern and eastern towns, many Russians are short of basic foods and living in sub-zero temperatures, even inside their own homes.