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Angered by his feuds with Vice Premier Anatoly Chubais and the national media, Primorye Governor Yevgeny Nazdratenko recently exploded in a letter to the Federation Council accusing Chubais of orchestrating a smear campaign. Here is the greater part of the letter, dated Oct. 8.

Dear Members of the Council of the Federation:

More than once in the course of recent years, Primorye residents have seen how economic hardships that the krai had to live through were cynically used by the opponents of the Primorsky Krai governor to spark an unprecedented informational war. While the krai authorities are busy with tackling urgent economic and social problems, the metropolitan television channels and national press purposely and repeatedly bring forth streams of exceptionally negative information about Primorye. Krai officials are sweepingly and groundlessly blamed for unprofessionalism and conducting a populist economic policy. But is it possible to speak about populism if, since 1993 (the year of my assuming the position of chief executive officer of Primorsky Krai), 23 schools, eight medical facilities, 10 asylums, 25 orphanages, eight social shelters and rehabilitation centers have been built, and seven higher education institutions have been opened in Primorye, and pension payments have not been delayed even for a single day! You colleagues, are well aware of how difficult it is now to achieve results like this.

Of course, like other Russian regions, we have many problems. The situation is difficult in the fuel and energy industries. But we do not relieve ourselves of responsibility and do not acknowledge our feebleness. To alleviate energy problems we have been developing small coal cast mines for several years and they will produce their 2 millionth ton of coal soon. Extremely high railroad rates and the desire to lower prices for foodstuffs made us produce wheat for the first time. Already this year the krai has raised and harvested an unprecedented in the region wheat crop: 36,000 tons. Primorye actively attracts foreign investments -- the first steps have been made to create a Korean technopark in the Nakhodka Free Economic Zone that will give the krai up to 15,000 new jobs. What we cannot do ourselves we try to resolve in a constructive cooperation with the federal authority. These days a Russian government's working group headed by First Deputy Minister of Fuel and Energy Sergei Kirienko handled the problems of the fuel and energy industries. Its work has yielded results already. Concrete methods have been planned to solve not only Primorye energy problems but the entire country's -- Russia's entire fuel and energy industry is crisis-stricken. And it is our krai where possible solutions are tested. But a colossal work was done before the arrival of the government's group -- that is what [Vice Minister for Fuel and Energy Sergei] Kirienko said so himself. He also announced that many of today's problems are caused by mistakes made in the course of privatizing energy companies. Meanwhile, the mass media distort the point and the results of the governmental working group's work. Apparently, such an interpretation of the processes that go on in the krai is of advantage to somebody.

Apart from this, a myth is being implanted into the conscience of the Russians that Primorye is a source of separatist trends and that economic, and that political chaos allegedly reigns in Primorye -- as if this were a zone of disaster caused by Nazdratenko. However, statistics say Primorye is not the most troubled of the Russian regions. In one word, everything is done to destroy a delicate yet public accord in the krai to meet quite certain political interests. All attempts by Primorsky Krai's administration or the governor to argue for their position are as a matter of fact blocked by mass media supervised by Mr. Chubais.

All this testifies to the fact that a number of state officials use their positions to expand a large-scale informational aggression against the leadership of a subject area of the Russian Federation. Seeing how the so-called "reforms" turned out for the people in the regions, their ideologists today increasingly often try to lay the responsibility for the catastrophic aftermath of their economic experiments on popularly elected chief executives in krais and oblasts as well as on company directors.

Today, the time has come to say openly and honestly that the policy carried out by such figures as Anatoly Chubais leads Russia down to the level of an obedient appendage of transnational companies and to a full deindustrialization of the domestic economy. Following the recommendations of various international financial institutions and standing up for their interests they have more than once deceived people. Suffice it to recall what the ill-performed privatization brought to the country. Thousands of companies in various industries got into the hands of foreigners or criminal structures. Year after a year, promises of coming economic stabilization in fact turned out to be an unprecedented situation when people cannot get their honestly earned wages for months, and enormous impoverishment of the populace. The country's budget system falls apart. And all that happens on the background of endless statements about the necessity to continue the course of reforms. Indeed, there is a need of reforms, but in ones of a different type!

Having the chance to manage huge political and economic resources, those like Chubais use them far from what is in the interests of the majority of Russians. Thus, they discredit state power in Russia by demonstrating an overt contempt for people's expectations. When defaming the leadership of regions in mass media, especially in the national ones, these politicians inflict a crippling blow upon the key element of the new Russian state system -- federalism. It is obvious that Primorye today is a trial balloon, a test site to work out the methods of pressuring the leaders of the subject areas of the Russian Federation who express an overt disagreement with the ideologists of complete destruction of the Russian economy. I believe that this is unacceptable. Irresponsible actions and political cynicism must be done away with! I do not need to justify myself to Mr. Chubais and those who devote themselves to endless intrigues and political games rather than an unselfish service to people!

All the aforementioned made me once again address a letter to the President of the Russian Federation. It asks for an appointment with Boris N. Yeltsin and invites him to come here to Primorye and see with his own eyes how this far eastern edge of Russia gets by. I think this will completely destroy the basis for various rumors about Primorsky Krai.

Dear colleagues! Biased media coverage of the situation in Primorye convinces me that the chief executive of the country hears distorted reports about the krai, and this krai is not the only case. In connection with this I will consider it necessary that the next session of the Federation Council to review the issue of the personal responsibility of a number of officials for the discrediting of the state power in Russian regions.

Primorsky Krai Governor Yevgeny Nazdratenko