It may have taken 850 years, but help is finally at hand. Mayor Yury Luzhkov has signed a decree to bring relief to millions of Muscovites, and raise the standards of the capital's toilets to rank with the world's finest.


The decree provides for a grandiose plan to restore, repair and renovate all Moscow's public toilets by 1997, the year the capital celebrates the 850th anniversary of its foundation by another Yury, this one Dolgoruky, whose mounted figure to this day points an accusing finger in the direction of City Hall.


Yevgeny Tikhovodov, spokesman for the city government, said the decree was a "vital part" of a government plan to transform the "shabby face" of the city and make it "a civilized world capital."


To call the plan ambitious would seem to be an understatement. Sanitary control officials said a check of 328 public toilets had found that 90 were under "permanent" repair, 40 did not function at all, while the others were in an "awful" sanitary state.


Anyone unfortunate enough to be caught so far from home, office, hotel, restaurant or even open country as to be forced to recourse to one of the facilities available would readily confirm the report's conclusions.


A quick glance into the men's lavatory at the Koptevsky Rynok in the northwest of the city is not to be recommended to the weak-stomached.


Three of the four doorless cubicles were barred with planks roughly nailed across the entrances. The fourth allowed access to a dark, filthy hole. Water dripped from walls and ceilings, pooling with other substances across the floor. The acrid stench spread to the street outside.


Such sights are far from uncommon. The present decree was initiated by Moscow's Chief Sanitation Inspector, Nikolai Shestopalov, who wrote an angry letter to Luzhkov to demand that the authorities should take immediate action to deal with this pressing problem.


"Moscow public toilets are a disgrace to the city," Tikhovodov acknowledged. "People are just afraid to go there. And that doesn't improve the atmosphere in the streets. It is very good that the mayor has taken the decision."


Tikhovodov said that under the decree all toilets will be handed over by the central city government to the local district authorities.


"The problem should be decided at local level. The city budget just doesn't have enough money. But local authorities can make enough money to keep the toilets in order. For example, they could sell off some of the toilets to commercial firms who would renovate them," he said.


He said the restored toilets would demand payment for use, but that the authorities would keep a strict control over the sum charged in order "not to irritate people."


But anyone nurturing dreams of white tiles, clean seats or toilet paper, let alone hot water and soap dispensers, should perhaps think again. Lyudmila Vasilyeva, a worker at the public toilet on Timiryazevskaya Ulitsa said this week she doubted that any changes would be effective."Every two weeks the pipes burst and we have to draw water with our own hands. All utilities of this toilet were built in 1934 and since that time neither perestroika nor any market changes have forced the authorities to give money for what is needed -- a top-to-bottom renovation." she said.


Local officials were also skeptical. An official at the northern administrative district, who declined to be named, said public toilets had been a sticking point for all Moscow mayors since Nikita Khrushchev was the Moscow boss in the early 1930s.


"To have civilized toilets in our city is just a beautiful dream. Maybe we should wait another 850 years," he said.