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                                                                                WORLD, Page 29

RUSSIA

Looking Into the Abyss


Real hunger and fear of a coup stalk the citizens of
St. Petersburg

By DAVID AIKMAN/ST. PETERSBURG


    The bright sun of a northern winter can still turn the
palaces and churches of Peter the Great's city into a feast of
visual elegance. But beneath the sparkling exterior, the mood
of the city's 5 million inhabitants is as frigid as the ice
piled up in the Neva River. Slowly, less dramatically than
during the 900-day siege by the German Wehrmacht in World War
II, St. Petersburg is experiencing real hunger.

    The city's scarcities became serious six months ago, say
city officials, after the neighboring, newly independent Baltic
states had already lifted their own price controls. That had led
to an influx of entrepreneurial food buyers from those
republics who took advantage of the cheaper prices to buy up
Russian goods. At the same time, food supplies to the city from
collective farms diminished after Mayor Anatoli Sobchak swept
to power in elections in 1990. The bureaucracy, still
predominantly hard-line communists, dragged their feet on
implementing changes. While other Russian cities, including
Moscow, could barter their industrial products for farm produce,
St. Petersburg, with 72% of its industrial output devoted to
military hardware, had nothing to trade. Observed a city tourist
guide bitterly: "You can't buy a chicken with a tank."

    Five months ago, city officials introduced rationing,
which at least enabled most people to buy staples like bread,
butter, milk and, occasionally, meat. But when Russian President
Boris Yeltsin freed prices on Jan. 2, most food except bread
virtually disappeared from stores. On the city's once elegant
Nevsky Prospekt, shoppers at a small grocery store stared
bleakly at cans of Finnish sardines, lollipops and American M&M
candies. With prices freed, costs soared tenfold against an
average salary that stayed at 400 rubles a month: sausage now
costs 100 to 200 rubles a kilo (2.2 lbs.), and even sour cream,
a Russian staple, goes for 130 rubles a kilo. Said a city
council member: "Our energy level is lower because we are not
receiving proper nutrition."

    The sense of city-wide despair is palpable even among the
frowsy tourist interpreters trained to talk up the city. "This
is the most humiliating time the city has ever undergone," said
one. "Even during World War II it was not like this. Our
country is falling apart." When would it get better? someone
asked. "When people learn once more the meaning of work, we will
have food again," came the answer. Others are not so sure. "The
situation is extraordinarily tense," said a city council member.
"The old authorities -- the communists -- realize that this may
be their last chance to regain power. We are hungrier than any
other big Russian city." He and other officials who support
Sobchak said they fear a possible local coup attempt against the
reform-minded mayor, whom hard-liners have been trying to force
out for weeks. The period of greatest vulnerability for such an
act, say several city officials, will be between Jan. 10 and the
end of February, when food shortages are likely to be severest.

    Who would actually lead such a coup does not seem clear in
anybody's mind: just an inchoate, presumably reactionary and
authoritarian group referred to ominously as "they." Explained
a driver: "There will be bread riots, and that will lead to a
coup. And when the coup takes place, that will lead to civil
war." But the real specter is chaos. Many of St. Petersburg's
citizens fear that social and political instability caused by
shortages will bring bloodshed. "When you see their faces," said
a member of the city council with a sigh, "they are very tense,
but that is because our life itself is so tense."