Muscovites were told to stay at home unless absolutely necessary Friday after a sudden thaw left the city streets coated in treacherous black ice.

Pedestrians slid about on pavements or opted to walk in the roads after melting snow and 40 percent of the monthly average rainfall solidified into a shiny, slippery surface on Thursday evening.

"We are urging pedestrians... without extreme need not to go out on the street because there is still heavy black ice in the city," Igor Pergamenshchik, spokesman for the deputy mayor in charge of housing and utilities, said in a statement.

While roads were cleared using de-icing chemicals, street cleaners struggled to clear ice clinging to pavements.

"Taking tiny steps and clumsily swinging their arms, thousands of Muscovites today negotiated the smooth ice of frozen pavements," Echo of Moscow radio station reported.

The Moscow branch of the emergency situations ministry advised residents to wear "footwear with a good grip" and "not to hurry when walking, for example to catch a bus."

City-funded news site M24.ru posted tips on staying upright including sticking foam plastic or sandpaper to the soles of shoes to make them grip better.

"Balance using your hands and don't put them in your pockets," the site advised.

Commentators complained that new smooth paving stones put in by mayor Sergei Sobyanin at great expense in recent years were proving particularly treacherous under foot.

"In Sobyanin's new pedestrian zones, there is perfect, endless black ice," wrote architecture preservationist Yevgeny Sosedov on Facebook, posting pictures of shiny pavements. "It's really impossible to walk on it, people are falling on their faces, one after another."

Temperatures above freezing, wind and rain were forecast to continue for a week.