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Political leaders battle. Gunmen kill mafia bosses. Yet a Korean industrial giant sees reason for optimism about the future of the city.

1997 was a roller-coaster ride, and here are its top stories as seen by the staff of the Vladivostok News.

Residents may be hoping for a quieter 1998, but we’re not betting on it. Remember, it’s the year of the tiger.

1. President strips governor’s powers

Impatient with an intractable energy crisis and alleged corruption in the krai government, President Yeltsin on June 6 appointed his Federal Security Bureau chief, Victor Kondratov, as presidential representative in Primorye. The move was unprecedented in Russia — representatives generally come from the ranks of civilians — and Kondratov continued to hold his FSB title. Yeltsin also stripped key powers from Gov. Yevgeny Nazdratenko and gave them to Kondratov.

Within three days, Kondratov ordered FSB agents to raid the Krai Department for Regional Policy Forecast. Agents searched the office’s computer and paper files for 2 1/2 hours, and the papers they seized left egg on the krai administration’s face. One document was titled “Necessary Measures on Discrediting the Mayor’s Office and V. Cherepkov Personally.” On July 14, Yeltsin further increased the power of his representatives nationwide. Despite the controversy surrounding his appointment, Kondratov won praise in some quarters as he pried money out of Moscow and hobnobbed with unpaid workers and striking miners. And Nazdratenko ended the year bruised but still firmly entrenched in office.

2. Trash strike fouls city for weeks

Trash was heaped in alleyways and piled outside the doors of apartment buildings for six weeks in July and August. It plugged the garbage chutes five stories high, and left the city choking under a miasma of smoke as citizens burned rubbish.

The problem began July 1 when the collection agency, SpetsAvtoKhozyaistvo, struck because Mayor Victor Cherepkov refused to sign a contract. The mounds of old fish tins and dirty diapers and rotting apple peels provided a breeding ground for rats. And this happened in a year in which Cherepkov eliminated funding for rat extermination. The rodent population grew by 40 percent, and city saw a 100 percent increase in rat-borne diseases such as hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome. Maternity wards, homes, and hospitals found themselves sharing quarters with rats. Eventually the city released less than 10 percent of the $208,701 needed to exterminate rats.

The strike ended Aug. 5 when Gov. Yevgeny Nazdratenko provided six months of back pay to SAK. The city was relieved, but the mayor raged about the interference and also complained about the “trash arsonists” who had been burning the heaps of rubbish.

3. Energy crisis dakens Primorye homes and businesses

For months last winter and spring, Primorye residents grew accustomed to cooking on camp stoves and reading their children bedtime stories by candlelight as blackouts lasted for 12 hours a day and longer. For two nights in May, about 1,000 residents of a neighborhood suffering from 23-hour-a-day blackouts took to the streets in anger, blocking cars.

The most frustrating aspect of the krai’s energy crisis was that Primorye has enough coal to last thirty years. But inefficient mines and high transportation costs, coupled with many citizens’ inability to pay energy bills, left the krai energy complex broke once again in 1997.

As miners and power plant workers struck for months of back pay, krai officials begged Moscow to bail them out. Federal charity and railroad tariff reductions kept the crisis at bay and workers on the job until the end of the year. But leaders have yet to find a permanent solution to energy woes, which are likely to continue for a long time to come.

4. Koreans cast vote for long term investment by building hotel

So what if it cost twice as much as predicted? Many see the Hotel Hyundai as a sign that Vladivostok, despite all its woes, still has potential to become a Pacific Rim success story.

The $98 million edifice, which will run in the red for 10 years, isn’t the first Western-style hotel in the area — the Vlad Motor Inn holds that honor. But Hyundai is the first five-star hotel in Vladivostok, and its restaurants are of a quality (and hefty price) previously unseen in the city.

However, the real significance of the hotel lies in the vote of confidence it represents by the South Korean industrial giant, Hyundai, whose containers arrive in the city every day. Korean investors are thinking long-term. They believe their divided peninsula will be united under one government within a decade, and Vladivostok — at the terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railroad and crossroads of China, Korea, Russia and Japan — will boom as a trading city.

For now, the Hyundai Hotel’s prices exclude most locals. But the hotel may make Vladivostok a little less foreign to businessmen looking to sink money into the local economy.

5. Mayor and Duma duke it out, and Cherepkov abruptly resigns

This year was a tumultuous one for Vladivostok Mayor Victor Cherepkov and his Krai Duma opponents. After Cherepkov canceled City Duma elections and tried to redistrict the city in the spring, the Primorye Duma sued him on charges of mismanagement.

The mayor continued to avoid court appearances — often calling in sick — so the Duma tried to kick him out in September. Prosecutors launched investigations into the legality of the decision, and within a month the Duma retreated.

In November, Cherepkov announced his resignation, attributing his frustration to the krai’s lawlessness, and he scheduled new mayoral elections for March 29. But the mayor delayed his departure, and many observers – including Gov. Yevgeny Nazdratenko and local presidential representative Victor Kondratov – said the announcement was only a political maneuver.

6. Gunfire ends lives of mafiosi — and several businessmen

Though Vladivostok’s reputation as an extraordinarily dangerous place is overrated, the city did see some high-profile and frightening homicides this year.

A sniper atop the Royal Park Casino shot and killed mafia boss Anatoly Kovalyov in June, while Mikhail Osipov – leader of “The Family” criminal organization – was murdered by AK-47-toting assassins outside the Hotel Hyundai in October. That same weekend, a gunman shot to death a businessmen with no apparent mob connections, Vladimir Dmitriev, as he returned home from work at the Pacific Trading House. In August, police found the tortured bodies of a husband-wife business team, possibly buried alive, in the woods near Shamora.

At the end of October, a gunman shot dead a police officer in the krai’s secretive Internal Affairs Department outside his apartment. In a strange twist, police responding to the murder scene had to kill the officer’s Rotweiler; it refused to let detectives near its master’s slain body. The policeman’s killing sparked a manhunt in which militia officers fanned out across Vladivostok, stopping and searching cars on street corners.

7. Health declines throughout the region

Primorye residents’ health continued to get worse this year, as hospitals went unfunded and doctors released a series of shocking statistics. “Social diseases” such as alcoholism and venereal diseases were on the rise (statisticians reported 40 times more cases of syphilis this year than in 1991), and tuberculosis grew by 15 percent among children from 1996 to 1997, medical experts reported in November.

Medical facilities, too, were ailing. The Mayor’s Office cut funding to hospitals, maternity wards, and clinics amid a squabble over who should fund them. Presidential Representative Kondratov finally helped out by bringing an emergency 10 billion rubles ($169,491) from Moscow for the children’s hospitals and maternity wards. But he provided no bailout for the psychiatric hospital, where signs posted in the halls begged friends and relatives to bring food for hungry patients.

8. Water supplies run low

A dry summer in 1997 left water reserves in southern Primorye at lows not seen for more than two decades, and krai leaders predict massive cuts until rains arrive in April.

Both Vladivostok and krai governments used the issue to lambaste each other, and an unwillingness to organize water rationing in early November left some regions of the city without any water at all, while others avoided cuts completely. Poor infrastructure in Vladivostok and leaky reservoirs in the region contributed to the mess. The situation was even worse in Bolshoi Kamen, where the city cut off water to apartments and left only one tap in each building.

Officials hope to solve the crisis for good next year by drilling into a depression they’ve known about for twenty years, but never tapped.

9. Angry voters overhaul Duma

Delay was not the best strategy, the Primorye Duma learned in its Dec. 9 vote. The Duma had stalled elections for nearly two years, but voters said no to a second term for most regional lawmakers. Instead, a slate of businessmen claimed 18 of the 39 seats in the parliament. Only four of the 14 candidates who sought reelection gained their seats again.

About 20 of the new Duma members support Gov. Yevgeny Nazdratenko, but not all have strong ties to him, according to analysts. But Mayor Cherepkov might not face as much hostility from the body. About 10 deputies are closly allied with the mayor, including the head of the city finance department.

The election drew about 36 percent of the vote — not a bad figure when compared to off-year elections in democracies such as the United States.

10. Nuclear waste plant goes to Bolshoi Ka-men, despite protests

Without the help of Greenpeace activists or glossy leaflets, 94 percent of Bolshoi Kamen residents voted June 11 to reject plans to locate a floating nuclear waste treatment facility at Zvezda factory.

The advisory vote stunned facility supporters, because the city is dependent on Zvezda and its dockyards for shipbuilding and refurbishing liquid radioactive waste. But citizens said they were afraid of plans to store the treated waste on the site, at least until a permanent site is built. Though the city Duma at first rejected the facility, it reversed itself in a later vote in October. Workers began assembling the facility in the fall.

The treatment plant wasn’t the only controversy to hit Zvezda this year. Angry workers who hadn’t been paid in nine months tried to block the Trans-Siberian Railroad July 1. Police disbursed them, and the krai offered their union a $105,263 loan to help desperate workers.