Moscow has been so warm this December that the government has resorted to sending trucks filled with artificial snow to decorate a new year display in the city centre.

Videos of the delivery for a snowboarding hill went viral as observers noted the irony of bringing snow to a city that spends millions each year on its removal.

“This is all the snow there is in Moscow. It’s being guarded in Red Square,” one Instagram user wrote, accompanied with a photograph from near the Kremlin.

The Moscow region is in the throes of one of its warmest winters since temperatures began to be systematically recorded 140 years ago. The temperature in the Russian capital rose to 5.4C on 18 December, topping the previous record for the month set in 1886.

“It’s not normal at all,” said Alexander Stanko, 62, a former foreman who was admiring the holiday decorations near the Kremlin on Sunday afternoon. As he spoke with a reporter, his granddaughter waved from a carousel set up near Red Square.

“Winters used to be a lot harder here,” he said. “You’d expect a few days with really strong frost and there would almost always be snow by the new year. It has been getting warmer, definitely. That’s why, as you can see, we have this funny snow over here this year.”

Concerns are growing about the effects of global heating on Russia. Permafrost under the country’s northern towns is slowly melting, and receding Arctic ice is driving hungry polar bears to forage in urban areas. The thaw in the northern permafrost has even set off a “gold rush” for mammoth ivory by making the tusks previously buried in ice more accessible to prospectors.

Мuд Роисси (@Fake_MIDRF) ФОТОФАКТ! Москва вывозит в регионы мусор, а ввозит - снег. #Абсурдистан pic.twitter.com/x2vKuWkkPl

The balmy December weather has interrupted hibernation at Moscow zoo and caused crocuses, lilacs and magnolias at Moscow State University’s apothecary garden to flower early. Zoo officials said they had put five jerboas – a type of hopping rodent with long hind legs – into specially refrigerated enclosures to encourage them to hibernate.

The most visible impact, however, has been the lack of snow, which usually begins blanketing Russia in October or November. Light flurries have fallen in Moscow and its parks are dusted white, but most of the snow in the city centre has melted.

The country virtually shuts down for more than a week after the new year, as Russians eat and drink their way through early January with ample time to recover before returning to work. This year, Moscow has closed down central avenues near the Kremlin and is erecting large soundstages for concerts during the holiday.

Permafrost thaw sparks fear of 'gold rush' for mammoth ivory Read more

The warm temperatures have kept Russians off cross-country skis and skating ponds, with children playing football in the courtyard rinks that usually host hockey matches at this time of year. One popular meme showed cupfuls of snow being sold for 50 rubles, or 62p.

Alexei Navalny, an opposition politician, wrote that he thought it was a joke when he heard about the deliveries of snow.

“I don’t see anything wrong with [bringing in snow],” said Alexander, who was dressed up as Ded Moroz, or Father Frost, in robes of radiant indigo and a flowing white beard. “[The government] is doing what it has to in order for people to have a nice celebration. I think they did the right thing.”

At an ice skating show just off of Tverskaya Street, Elena Karavayeva, 45, said she couldn’t remember a year when there had been no snow at all before the new year. “It will be a sad new year without it,” she said. “We’d plan to take the kids to the park, and let them play on their sleds, but I guess we’ll have to come up with something else.”

City officials said the artificial snow had been brought in for a snowboarding demonstration that will begin on New Year’s Day. The snow was produced by cutting ice for a local skating rink, said Alexei Nemeryuk, the head of Moscow’s trade and services department.

“The machines are cutting snow anyway and some remains. It is usually melted down, but in this case we have used it again,” he told the Govorit Moskva radio station.

Russia is a signatory to the Paris agreement to combat global heating, and Vladimir Putin said during a televised press conference last week that the crisis was a direct threat to Russia. The country was warming 2.5 times faster than the average for the planet, he noted.

At the same time, Russia recently abandoned plans to set greenhouse-gas emissions targets for business after lobbying by a powerful Russian industry association. In his remarks, Putin cast doubt on the science, however, and omitted any discussion of greenhouse gases. He suggested the climate could be changing because of a shift in Earth’s axis.

“Nobody really knows the causes of climate change, at least global climate change,” he said, adding that people should nevertheless make their “best efforts to prevent dramatic changes in the climate”.