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Gen. Victor Kondratov – presidential representative and head of Primorye’s FSB – acts more like a dad-in-chief than a spook. But there’s this nagging question about the constitution.

The British ambassador is in town, and several hundred people hobnob in a Hyundai Hotel ballroom, sipping Languedoc wines or 12-year-old scotch, grabbing crab hors d’oeurvres and sushi from waitresses circulating with trays.

Vladivostok’s mayor is here, grinning wildly, surrounded by supporters. Duma members and Russian and English businessmen glad-hand each other, distributing their cards.

To one side, his back against a wall, stands a burly man with a square jaw and boxer’s nose. Almost alone in this crowd, he isn’t drinking. He watches. Nods to the power brokers who stray over to pay court. Some of the British seem oblivious to him – an embassy officer tells an out-of-town journalist that the most important Russian official here is a vice governor, now guffawing with his cronies over by the piano.

If Gen. Victor Kondratov is momentarily out of the limelight, that can hardly feel strange to a man who spent his career in what was once the KGB (now the FSB). What must seem odd is the attention he has received ever since President Yeltsin appointed Kondratov as presidential representative to Primorye while retaining his FSB status. This combination of portfolios was unprecedented in Russia.

Since his appointment in June, the 55-year-old Kondratov has turned into something of a shadow governor – and assumed an informal role as dad-in-chief, the man the children come crying to in a land of unpaid workers and crumbling social services. He behaves more like a populist politician than a secret agent – speaking to striking workers who blocked the Trans-Siberian railway, hearing out angry teachers who demonstrated for unpaid wages at City Hall (the mayor never left the building).

“His appearance inspires trust and confidence in people, and they see in him a comforting strength,” says Marina Loboda, a political reporter for the daily Vladivostok.

Yet Kondratov has drawn criticism from those concerned about having an FSB general in a traditionally civilian role. And four months after his promise to crack down on corruption, no case has been filed. (Kondratov says the FSB handed over its evidence to the prosecutor’s office.)

Natalia Menshenina, an expert in local politics at Far Eastern State Technical University, says Yeltsin appointed an FSB official as his representative because of the high level of corruption in Primorye politics. But the decision, she says, was a bad one.

“It’s an unconstitutional phenomenon to have an FSB general as a presidential representative,” she says. “I have spoken on this matter before, and I have said that you wouldn’t imagine even in a nightmare that a presidential representative would also be an FSB general.”

Kondratov works out of an office in the FSB building on Aleutskaya. Despite the general’s accessibility, an air of suspicion still hangs in the hallways. A giant bronze of the KGB’s brutal founder, Felix Dzerzhinsky, stands in the downstairs lobby, and the FSB refuses to allow foreign journalists to cover its press conferences. But Kondratov is a more reassuring presence: He wears a sweater, and his office is full of light, with a clock on a counter and a potted tree on his desk.

Kondratov was born in Sevastopol, a Crimean seaport. As a child he moved often. His father was an Army officer, and his mother a doctor at a health resort. After graduating from a Merchant Marine college at 17 years old, he went to sea. At a time when travel abroad was a luxury few Soviet citizens enjoyed, Kondratov saw the world.

“I traveled a lot,” he says. “It’s easier to say where I haven’t been.”

Married in 1962, Kondratov and his wife had three children – two girls and a boy. He didn’t join the KGB until he was 30 years old, when began as a “listener” – a Russian term for trainees in a professional field. Within two years he was an agent.

While the KGB served as the enforcer of the Soviet state, in a closed society it was also among the best informed about the system’s weaknesses. As Kondratov says, “Every rational person always weighs what’s good and bad in the national process.” He became acquainted with the undercurrents of reform long before Gorbachev came to the attention of the West.

In 1982, Kondratov was present when Premier Yury Andropov proposed a “democratization” of the Soviet Union, he says. “At that time, everybody realized that the country could not exist under such a regime anymore,” Kondratov says. Except that unlike the helter-skelter changes under perestroika, Andropov’s process was supposed to take 25 years.

Kondratov notes with pride the role of Andropov, former KGB head, in attempting to initiate reform. “As the process of democratization was concerned, we probably were the ones who started it,” Kondratov says.

This might come as a surprise to generations of dissidents executed and sent to labor camps by the KGB. Nevertheless, Kondratov was evidently close to the reformist wing of the government. As Andropov grew ill, he thrust forward Mikhail Gorbachev; after the interregnum of Konstantin Chernenko, Gorbachev would head the nation. And Kondratov found himself near the center of power. When Gorbachev and President Bush met on ships in Malta, Kondratov was there, assigned to Bush’s protection, he says. “I met Bush every day when he came over by ferry boat,” Kondratov says.

Kondratov ended up as head of the Primorye FSB in 1991. And on June 6 of this year, he replaced Vladimir Ignatenko as the president’s representative. The transition was hardly a smooth one. Yeltsin stripped Gov. Nazdratenko of powers over the energy, timber and fishing industries, handing this authority over to Kondratov.

A room full of local officials hooted at Yeltsin’s chief of staff when he announced the decision. Within the month, another presidential decree expanded the power of Yeltsin’s representatives, here and elsewhere. They could use federal specialists to check on private companies, and allowed him access to all krai documents, among other powers.

In a region where the krai and city are at loggerheads, Kondratov maintains relations with both Nazdratenko and Mayor Victor Cherepkov. He refuses to characterize the relationship other than saying he tries to help and preserve the constitution. But Deputy Mayor Nikolai Markovtsev, a Cherepkov ally, praises Kondratov for criticizing the duma’s recent attempt to oust Cherepkov.

“Kondratov works for the good of the city,” Markovtsev says, “and it was useful to hear his support when he made his statement about the duma. He’s the kind of a person who is highly regarded by all the other state powers – the prosecutor, the courts...”

Kondratov’s family found its way into the newspapers Oct. 15 when a detachment of special police searched customers at a nightclub, including Kondratov’s son-in-law, Anatoly Akperov. Akperov allegedly came out drunk and yelled threats and obscenities at the policemen, the cops told newspapers.Kondratov’s daughter, police said, asked if the cops knew who they were getting involved with.

Two officers heading the search were sacked. Kondratov has refused to comment, saying he has nothing to do with police matters.

When asked about his achievements, Kondratov sounds more like a governor than an FSB general: he secured 20 billion rubles for the Nakhodka Free Economic Zone, 44 billion for an anti-flood program, 45 billion to help the region through its power shortage.

Still, Kondratov is low-key when describing his role. He doesn’t talk about knocking heads together, ferreting out corruption, issuing orders on behalf of the president.

“My role is to see that the constitution is intact and the law is followed,” he says.

And he seems confident that this balance can be found – even in an office in the FSB building.