Smog blankets Moscow during record heat

People walk along Red Square in Moscow with St. Basil's Cathedral seen through heavy smog caused by peat fires in nearby forests on July 26, 2010. Muscovites struggled to breathe on Monday and Red Square was blanketed in smoke as a record-setting heatwave that that has already ruined crops caused fires that set the area around the capital ablaze. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

Moscow sweltered on Monday through its hottest day since records began 130 years ago, as temperatures hit 37.4 C, sparking peat fires that blanketed the city in smog. A heatwave has engulfed central parts of European Russia, and Siberia since June, destroying crops covering an area the size of Portugal.

Moscow's Novodevichyi Monastery is seen through a fog in downtown on Monday, July 26, 2010.  (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze)