TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/091790/0917014.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 4KB | 83 lines

                                                                                THE GULF, Page 29

AMERICA ABROAD

Welcome to Yeltsin Country


By Strobe Talbott


    VLADIVOSTOK

    Barring a typhoon in the Sea of Japan or a full-scale war
in the Persian Gulf, a squadron of American warships will steam
into Vladivostok's Golden Horn harbor this week for the first
visit by the U.S. Navy in more than 50 years. Last week, while
a pinafored band practiced The Stars and Stripes Forever in
Revolution Square, Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze was a
few blocks away, addressing a conference of about 100 experts
on Asia from 19 countries. "Not bad for what is still
officially classified as a closed city," remarked Vladimir
Kuznetsov, the provincial governor.

    Vladivostok (pop. 660,000) is a microcosm of the struggle
between the forces of reform and reaction, openness and
xenophobia that is seething throughout the U.S.S.R. The city,
with its magnificent harbor, could be the commercial gateway
to Siberia and the Soviet Far East, which constitute the
largest expanse of untapped natural resources in the world. The
Maritime Province's fishing and timber industries already earn
enough hard currency from exports to have donated Japanese-made
sports cars to the region's police, who need the fancy wheels
to catch equally well-equipped smugglers and black marketeers.

    The Vladivostok city government and growing private sector
want to attract foreign capital and credits by creating a
"free-enterprise zone." Seoul and Tokyo would be only about an
hour away by air -- if international flights were alto land
here. But Vladivostok is home to the Soviet Pacific fleet, and
the naval high command is more concerned with keeping out spies
than with letting in businessmen -- or any other foreigners.
To permit last week's conference, Shevardnadze had to enlist
Mikhail Gorbachev's help in overruling the Ministry of Defense.

    "We welcome the chance to show some hospitality," says
Viktor Tumanov, a foreign-trade official. "But such occasions
are still exceptions to the rules. We want the rules changed.
The more our people see of the outside world, the more they
want to be part of it."

    The debate over when to open the city is rapidly becoming
an issue in the rivalry between Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin,
the hard-charging populist leader of the Russian Federation.
During a visit here last month, Yeltsin vowed that if the
Soviet government did not lift restrictions permanently and
soon, the Russian parliament would do so on its own. As a
result, this is now Yeltsin country.

    When they arrive this week, the U.S. sailors are likely to
be more impressed by the natural beauty of the surroundings
than by the Soviet naval power on display in the harbor. There
at her moorings is the Minsk, a helicopter carrier of a class
that sent the Pentagon into a frenzy of alarm in the 1970s. It
is about half the size of the U.S. flattops on duty in the
gulf. Nearby are a number of formidable-looking deand
guided-missile cruisers, but they are outnumbered by a long row
of decrepit submarines literally rusting away at dockside and
good for little more than the cannibalization of parts. For
years these vessels have figured in Western bean counters'
assessments of the Red Menace. When forced upon the Soviet
military, glasnost often reveals more waste and weakness than
strength.

    Vladimir Lukin, a Yeltsin ally in the Russian parliament,
told last week's conference, "Vladivostok's biggest secret is
that there should be no secrets here." Local citizens applauded
vigorously, but the few uniformed officers in attendance
scowled in silence.