80,000 Muslims pray on the street in Moscow

Tens of thousands of Muslim men have knelt shoulder-to-shoulder in prayer on the freezing streets of Moscow to celebrated the religious holiday of Eid al-Adha. -- PHOTO: AP

MOSCOW (AP) - Tens of thousands of Muslim men have knelt shoulder-to-shoulder in prayer on the freezing streets of Moscow to celebrated the religious holiday of Eid al-Adha.

Estimates of the number of Muslims living or working in the Russian capital run from 2 million to as high as 5 million, but the city has few mosques.

Police said 170,000 people celebrated the holiday in Moscow, including 80,000 who gathered on the street outside what was once the main mosque. The 100-year-old building was torn down in September and a new mosque being built next to it is still under construction.

Many of those who braved the freezing temperatures to pray on Sunday were migrant workers from countries in Central Asia that were once part of the Soviet Union.