RUSSIA'S NATURAL DRUG

MOSCOW (AFP) - Half a dozen other swimmers hurry, breath steaming, to the dark rectangle of water hacked from the ice-covered Moscow river. An AFP reporter is invited to join.

"In you go. Left, right, left, right!" roars ex-paratrooper Grebyonkin, 65. "Now submerge! Once, twice, three times. Out!"

First the cold is painful. Then numbing. Then burning, blinding and deafening. Finally: a sensation of disorientation, weightlessness and dazed pleasure.

Welcome to the life of the "morzhy," or walruses, who this weekend celebrated the long-delayed arrival of winter in the European part of Russia by plunging into frozen rivers, ponds and lakes.

Critics, including many doctors, warn that ice swimming is dangerous. Water temperatures of two to four degrees C (36-39 degrees F) can kill within 30 minutes.

But ice swimming, popular from Canada to China, is part of the mythical Russian soul. Orthodox believers mark the Epiphany, a Christian feast day celebrated on January 6, with ice dips, while day-to-day devotees describe it as nothing short of a way of life.

"Slavs have been doing this kind of thing forever -- going out to roll in the snow, or celebrating Epiphany at the monasteries," Grebyonkin said. "Our forefathers fought the cold, so it's in our genes."

Grebyonkin, president of the Russian Winter Swimming Federation, says there are between one and two million Russian "morzhy." That includes members of about 50 clubs dotted around Moscow's riverbanks, ponds and canals.

And even if they look insane, there's method in the madness.