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By Russell Working and Nonna Chernyakova City ambulances struck for two months last summer, and thousands of citizens were without heat this winter. The city administration stopped picking up dead bodies from streets and apartments, leaving police officers to commandeer passing bread trucks to do the job. And this month, President Yeltsin fired Mayor Viktor Cherepkov in a replay of a 1994 dismissal that the Supreme Court subsequently found to be illegal. 1998 was a time of troubles -- and of squabbles of farcical proportion -- in this Pacific port city that has become a symbol of the woes facing provincial Russia as it struggles through the first winter after its economic collapse. Residents get by with a weary cynicism, wondering why life has to be so hard in Russia. And many regard the New Year with foreboding. "Why can't we simply live normal lives, like people in other countries?" said Yevgeny Mazur, an elderly driving instructor who can't afford to retire because his monthly pension of $27 is so small. Vladivostok, a city of 634,000 at the terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, suffers from the same problems that appear tangled and intractable in Russia at large. There is the wage non-payment crisis, the energy crisis, the collapse of industry. But many of Vladivostok's wounds are self-inflicted. The city suffers from an especially virulent disease of the political system. Cherepkov, who is in hiding but still claims to be mayor, was once the darling of Moscow's democratic elite for holding his own in a four-year turf war with Yevgeny Nazdratenko, the autocratic governor of the Primorye region in which Vladivostok lies. A self-proclaimed clairvoyant who says he communes with cosmic spirits, he has long been known as an eccentric. Cherepkov won the loyalty of an odd coalition of voters: motorists, who appreciated his road improvements, and elderly investors in a failed pyramid scheme, which had been backed by Nazdratenko. But the criticism turned harsh this year as Cherepkov cut off funding to city orphanages, children's hospitals, maternity homes and a psychiatric institution. He funneled city money into his election campaign, leading to his disqualification in this fall's election. That, plus the mayor's mismanagement of this winter's heating crisis, apparently led Yeltsin to risk firing Cherepkov again Dec. 11. Nazdratenko himself refused to cooperate with Cherepkov, no matter how dire the problem. The Primorye regional administration withheld federal money from the city, keeps 52 percent of its budget secret even from the Duma, and employs a first vice governor accused of having a hand in the kidnapping and torture of a journalist critic two years ago (he was never implicated). Amid this bleak scene, Presidential Representative Viktor Kondratov expressed hope for the New Year. "Despite all the negative stormy events this year, democracy is developing," he said. "We elected a workable regional duma, and I hope we'll elect the city duma and mayor early next year." Part Kondratov's hope lies in a regional duma that has been willing to challenge the governor, unlike the previous rubber-stamp parliament. The duma demanded to see the secret budget and rebuked the governor for failing to provide a 1999 proposed budget by October. But ironically, such challenges came from a faction allied to Cherepkov, and it is unknown how his departure will shake-up the political scene. Alexander Gelbakh a spokesman for the near-bankrupt Dalenergo energy supplier, sees little hope for the New Year. "On the local level, there is constant squabbling," he said. "People in power who ought to cooperate refuse to do it. It's like a kindergarten only with crazy kids." There are reasons for his bitterness. Vladivostok's heating crisis became so severe in a bitter winter (temperatures had already fallen to -18 Celsius by late November) because homes are heated by central boiler houses. Because of squabbles between the city and various agencies that owned the boiler houses, repair fell far behind schedule, and at one point 600 apartment blocks were without heat. (The situation was similar in cities such as Magadan and Petropavlavsk-Kamchatsky, where tens of thousands of homes were also without heat.) Gelbakh says Dalenergo is now providing heat to its network of homes and offices, and it has gotten promised assistance from the administration of Yury Kopylov, who was appointed mayor in Cherepkov's place. Despite a wealth of ports and proximity to the markets Japan, China and South Korea, Vladivostok remains a poor city. Russia is crippled by vast amounts of stealing, from unpaid soldiers who sell stolen gasoline, to bosses who walk off with the company payroll. But there are some signs of change: Unpaid wages are trickling out to workers, and non-payment fell from 2.2 billion rubles to 1.6 billion, according Vladimir Chubai, head of the Primorye Federation of trade unions. Still, this is hardly a reason for cheer. "This upsets us a lot," he said. Kondratov, however, is hopeful for the New Year -- both in Vladivostok and in Russia. "I talk to a lot of people," he said. "All the bankers, directors and even 'new Russians' have started to realize that one can't build anything in a desert. They plan to invest more money into industry and staples, and we already have an agreement with the regional administration on that."
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