THERE'S a strange mixture of the old and the new in the air as the
buds begin to bulge on Moscow's trees in preparation for the explosion
of spring. It takes about three days for the bare trees to burst
simultaneously into leaf after the six dark months of winter and that
should happen soon.
Easter will be celebrated next Sunday according to the Orthodox
calendar and the kulich Easter cakes abound in the shops -- unlike last
year, when little or no goods were to be found.
The queues are gone too, except of course for the delicious Russian
ice-cream which tempts Muscovites even on the coldest winter day to drop
everything and stand in line. At Gastronom Number One (formerly
Yeliseyev's) on Tverskaya (formerly Gorky) Street, foodstuffs are in
abundant supply but Russian salami, which is a basic food item, is
selling at over 3000 roubles a kilo or three months' wages for many
people. Hence the absence of queues.
Spring, by the way, is not the only thing exploding in Moscow these
days. During the week three bedrooms in the Leningradskaya Hotel, about
100 yards from my apartment, were blown up and slightly further away,
ironically on Prospekt Mira (Peace Avenue), mafia groups staked out
their territory with automatic gunfire shortly after 3pm.
Most of this is new, but even the most dedicated proponents of the new
Russia sometimes revert to the old ways. Take the upcoming referendum,
for example. President Yeltsin is acting in a new Western way in wooing
the voters but has also shown that old habits die hard.
He is reducing petrol prices, threatening to sack Ministers
responsible for price rises, and offering subsidised loans to those who
want to buy apartments or build houses. This is new.
He is also having an apartment block built for himself and his aides.
This is straight from the past.
His own pad is reputed to cover 400 square yards, almost 4000 sq ft,
on the sixth floor of a building under construction at 4 Osennaya
Street. Costs according to the local press are running at about 100
million roubles (#100,000) per month.
The English-language Moscow Tribune reports site engineer Mr Vladimir
Perevalov, who worked for Brezhnev and Kruschev, as saying: ''I have not
worked on such a chic house in my 30 years in the business.''
Other reversions to the bad old days are more sinister, if less
costly. In the battle of words between President and Parliament the
essence of glasnost appears to be threatened. The Parliament wants to
open its very own TV channel and send teams of ''observers'' into
existing stations.
The President has issued one decree taking control of the media for
its own protection and another for the ''reorganisation'' of the St
Petersburg channel where his arch-enemy on the nationalist right, Mr
Alexander Nevzorov, has returned to the airwaves with his show Six
Hundred Seconds, or the ''Ten-Minute Hate'' as the President's
supporters now describe it.
And for the first time in years an incident has occurred which has put
the Western press on its guard. Will Englund of the Baltimore Sun has
been paying visits to Lefortovo Prison this week to meet Mr Viktor
Shkarin, a representative of the Russian security service.
The business began when the American journalist interviewed a Russian
scientist some time ago about reports that the new Russia was still
producing chemical weapons, including a binary nerve gas.
The scientist, Mr Vil Mirzayanov, has now been charged with revealing
state secrets and it should be noted that state secrets here can include
anything from the size of Russia's gold reserves to the time of day.
Will Englund has been asked to supply the security service with evidence
from his interview which, incidentally, was totally open and on the
record.
So far so good. But Mr Englund's request to have a lawyer and a
representative from the US Embassy attend his meetings with Mr Shkarin
has been refused and attempts to allow him have representation have
failed.
Finally, last Thursday Will Englund went in with his interpreter,
Andrei Mironov, and faced Mr Shkarin. Questions were asked and answered.
Mr Shkarin helpfully offered to rewrite the answers for Mr Englund, who
told me afterwards in terms that every journalist will understand: ''It
was like dealing with your worst editor.''
He and Mr Mironov at first refused to sign the prepared protocol. They
were told they could leave, but at the door were given a piece of paper
which said that the cops would be at the door at 10.30am the next day to
bring him to meet Mr Shkarin again and that this time the Russian
security service (the name sounds much more comforting than the KGB,
doesn't it?) would provide its own interpreter.
Finally Mr Mironov signed the protocol in order to avoid this
situation and there the position rests. The harassment of the Baltimore
Sun's correspondent is believed to be the first such case since 1986
since Nicholas Daniloff of the US News and World Report was arrested for
''espionage'' by the bad old KGB. Plus a change . . .
* Seamus Martin is Moscow correspondent for the Irish Times.
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