By Roman Kozhevnikov

SANGTUDA, Tajikistan, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Tajikistan, its utilities paralysed by the coldest winter in decades, on Sunday opened a new Russian-built power plant hailed by the authorities as a step towards solving an energy crisis. Millions of Tajiks were struggling to survive without heating and electricity in their homes as temperatures plunged to below -20 degrees Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit) across the mountainous nation north of Afghanistan.

Tajik President Imomali Rakhmon, speaking at the opening ceremony of the Sangtuda-1 hydroelectric power plant, said additional electricity capacity would help avoid such crises in the future.

"This year's winter has proved the necessity of solving Tajikistan's energy problems as quickly as possible," he said during the Soviet-style ceremony, its site festooned with flags and portraits of Rakhmon and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Its infrastructure ruined in a 1990s civil war, Tajikistan has long experienced power shortages in winter months when temperatures usually stay above -5 Celsius (23.00 Fahrenheit).

This winter's bitter cold caught the authorities off guard, forcing the government to resort to daily rations of electricity, water and gas in the nation of 7 million.

But with its daily production capacity of 2.4 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, Sangtuda-1 is too small to make any immediate change in the impoverished ex-Soviet nation.

By comparison, the Tajik capital Dushanbe alone, where electricity is rationed to just a few hours a day, consumes about 10 million kilowatt-hours of electricity a day.

The $500 million plant, its construction financed by Russian electricity company RAO UES, is due to reach full capacity of 2.7 million kilowatt-hours later this year.

No central heating and electricity rations are fuelling discontent in Tajikistan, a Muslim nation where pro-Moscow forces fought in a bitter war against Islamists in the 1990s.

Dushanbe residents said heating was working only in the centre of the Soviet-built city while no electricity at night made it impossible to use electric heating devices to keep apartments warm.

Nozir Yodgori, a spokesman for the Tajik state power company, said on Friday that outside Dushanbe electricity was being limited to one hour in the morning and one in the evening.

(Writing by Maria Golovnina)

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