ST. PETERSBURG -- At the Grand Hotel Europe in downtown St. Petersburg, bright yellow barricades and a dozen police officers have closed off the street. Gypsies and beggars, once common, have disappeared from the hotel's environs.


"It's a tremendous achievement," said Jaideep Mazumdar, the five-star hotel's manager. "This is the first step to a new future. Mayor (Anatoly) Sobchak has clearly demonstrated that the criminal situation can be taken care of literally overnight, given the political will."


Crime, beggars, dirt, pot-holes -- all have been swept away or filled up as St. Petersburg prepares to host the 1994 Goodwill Games, which open Saturday. President Boris Yeltsin is expected to attend the opening, along with International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch and Ted Turner, the media mogul who founded the Olympic-style athletics competition.


Friday afternoon, roads were still being frantically paved and the air was heavy downtown with the smell of wet paint, while old women feverishly planted pink begonias outside city hall's Mariinsky Palace. But such last-ditch measures aside, city officials and games organizers agreed that they were now ready for the expected deluge of athletes, journalists and a predicted 80,000 foreign spectators.


Tickets, however, have been selling slowly. Martin Dyke, a spokesman for the British company Synchro Systems, which is in charge of ticket distribution, attributed the slump to poor advertising.


"Earlier in the week we did have some fears, but sales have been picking up these last few days," Dyke said. "A number of Russians aren't entirely convinced that the tickets being sold in the kiosks are the real tickets. We expect many Russians will buy tickets at the gate."


Dyke said Russian ticket prices range from 9,450 rubles ($4.70) to 135,450 rubles, with most single-event tickets costing from 14,000 to 30,000 rubles.


Hotels are crammed and international plane tickets scarce. "We're about 90 percent full, which is quite good for a five-star hotel," said Natasha Belik, a spokesman for the Nevsky Palace. The Grand Hotel Europe was fully booked.


At the Mariinsky Theater, stunning productions of Eugene Onegin, Swan Lake, Don Quixote and the Marriage of Figaro are scheduled nightly during the games.


"There are still some tickets left, but only among the better seats, for 100,000, 90,000 and 80,000 rubles," said deputy theater director Vladimir Tanko.


By all appearances the St. Petersburg authorities -- plagued by what they say is the city's unfair reputation as a crime capital -- are pulling out all the stops to impress foreign visitors. The city assembly has published appeals reminding people to be hospitable and polite, while Mayor Sobchak has pleaded furiously with citizens to wash their windows and to "stop doing disgusting things in the entrances to your apartment buildings."


Sobchak has denounced media reports hyping St. Petersburg's high crime rates. Such reports, he said, are part of a calculated campaign to sabotage Russia's bid to join a unified Europe.


Police, meanwhile, proudly claim successes against crime. Yury Loskutov, chief of the St. Petersburg police, said his officers had closed seven brothels this month -- to reduce the temptations for "young athletes and hot-blooded fans."


GAI traffic police in new grey uniforms now stand on virtually every downtown corner. Spot-checks have been stepped up.


"Many people with clear criminal intent have already been detected," Loskutov said.


"Not one car now enters the city after midnight without being searched," said Vitaly Gulyayev, the city's deputy GAI chief. "We understand that we're creating some difficulties for city dwellers returning from their dachas on the weekends, but believe me, these are necessary measures."


Other measures include metal detectors at all sports venues and some hotels. On the streets, regular police and GAI have been reinforced by OMON Interior Ministry troops and even military academy students.


Gypsies and the homeless have disappeared from St. Petersburg's streets. Valery Solovyov, who runs a downtown soup kitchen, said police had been intimidating beggars and homeless people to get them to stay off the streets.