TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/101491/1014004.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.8 KB | 119 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 40

SOVIET UNION

The Rebirth of St. Petersburg


Peter the Great's erstwhile capital is hoping once again to
be Russia's window to the West

By JAMES CARNEY/ST. PETERSBURG


    On a warm fall evening, pedestrians jam the wide
sidewalks of the city's main avenue, Nevsky Prospekt. They
bustle by a young couple absorbed in a passionate kiss, and
glance, if only briefly, at a marquee announcing a new American
B movie. But at a wall plastered with advertisements and
political manifestos, a few stop to listen as members of a small
crowd argue the merits of removing Vladimir Lenin, founder of
the Soviet state, from his mausoleum in Moscow's Red Square and
burying him in a local cemetery. WE MUST SAVE OUR BELOVED CITY
FROM THE CORPSE OF LENIN, reads a sign posted on the wall,
accompanied by a sketch of Lenin with horns sprouting from his
head. THE CORPSE OF LENIN IS THE CORPSE OF SATAN.

    The metropolis that is famed as the cradle of the 1917
Bolshevik Revolution is throwing off its communist legacy with
a vengeance. Known for 67 years as Leningrad, Russia's second
largest city last week officially became historic St. Petersburg
again. The name change is largely symbolic. Statues of Lenin
still loom over city parks and cast long shadows in front of
train stations. The city council, mindful of budget constraints,
has decided not to spend any money on new road signs or
stationery. But the rechristening reflects a deeper
transformation that optimists say has affected many of the
city's 5 million residents. "On the surface, nothing has changed
in the way we live," explains Sergei Fyodorov, a taxi driver.
"But the people in this city have changed. The change is in our
souls. We feel free at last."

    Led by Mayor Anatoly Sobchak, a hero of the resistance to
August's aborted hard-line coup, reformers in the city are
trying to pull St. Petersburg out of Moscow's shadow and
transform it into a gateway to the West. Some even suggest
returning the political capital to St. Petersburg, though
Sobchak says his task is "to revive St. Petersburg as the
financial, cultural and scientific capital of Russia." For a
precedent, Sobchak turns to the city's founder, Peter the Great,
the Czar who set out to westernize the backward Russian Empire.
"For 10 years Peter the Great tried to carry out reforms in
Moscow, but nothing came of it," Sobchak says. "Then he moved
to the banks of the Neva River, founded a capital here and
achieved his reforms. And so now we have the chance to repeat
Peter the Great's experiment."

    Peter's efforts date back to 1703, when he began building
his city from the miasmic swamps of the Neva River. He wanted
to open "a window on Europe," a point of entry for the flow of
Western ideas into his isolated empire. The reformist Czar
hired Italian architects to design a modern European capital
with intersecting avenues lined by stately homes and grand
palaces.

    But St. Petersburg's architectural charm and rich history
will do little to diminish the formidable obstacles confronting
Sobchak as he tries to reform the city's economy. His advisers
are working on plans to create a "free economic zone" around the
city by Jan. 1, in the hope that lower taxes and fewer customs
barriers will encourage foreign banks and companies to invest.
So far, Moscow is going along with the idea. But even Anatoly
Chubais, Sobchak's chief economic adviser, admits that the free
economic zone is "a risky policy" prone to failure if Russia's
economy as a whole does not improve. "Even if we wanted to
create capitalism in just one Russian city, it wouldn't be
possible," says Chubais. "We have the same ruble and the same
financial system."

    St. Petersburg will also be a testing ground for the
conversion of Soviet factories from military to civilian
production, since 70% of the city's industries work on military
orders. Though some critics accuse the mayor of cozying up to
the military-industrial complex, Chubais argues that the
abundance of enterprises producing high-tech equipment such as
satellites and communications systems gives the city an edge in
attracting foreign capital. But Western firms may be reluctant
to make investments in a republic as unstable as Russia. If so,
Sobchak's St. Petersburg could be rocked by massive unemployment
as Moscow trims orders for military hardware.

    A persuasive speaker who counts John F. Kennedy and
Charles de Gaulle among his role models, Sobchak, 53, is one of
the most influential politicians in Russia, behind only Soviet
President Mikhail Gorbachev and Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
Yet conservative and liberal opponents alike accuse him of
resorting to authoritarianism in running the affairs of St.
Petersburg. "God never gave Anatoly Sobchak the talent to work
with other people," wrote one critic. Sobchak, a former law
professor, dismisses the accusations as the grumblings of
"incompetents" on the unwieldy, 382-member city council. Thanks
to his national status, Sobchak says, he is "much more
successful in solving the problems of the city than any of my
would-be successors."

    If all goes well with Sobchak's economic reform plans,
Chubais predicts a rise in the standard of living in the city
by the end of 1992. The question is whether St. Petersburg
residents will have the patience to wait that long. Leonid
Keselman, a sociologist who specializes in public opinion
surveys, believes they will. "The people of this city have
suffered for a long time without hope," he says. "Now they have
something real to hope for." If Keselman is right, it may be
only a matter of time before Peter the Great's old capital
reclaims its place among the great cities of Europe.