In a country where payment in kind to compensate for salary arrears has long been a fact of life at thousands of state enterprises, the workers at the Ural truck factory in Mias, near Chelyabinsk, would seem to be doing better than most: They get gold.


The scheme is not the first the plant has come up with to get around its cash-flow problems. Earlier this year, the factory began printing its own currency -- the Yurik -- named affectionately after its director, Yury Gorozhaninov.


Senior officials at the plant were initially bashful about the latest project -- to the point of blank denial. But a spokesman for the adminstration finally admitted Thursday that every month workers are handed over an assortment of gold rings, earrings, necklaces and other jewelry in lieu of wages.


According to Boris Vydrin, the situation of the plant, formerly the leading producer of "Ural" heavy trucks and spare parts for tanks for the Soviet Army, had been critical, with its 26,000 work force "on the verge of despair."


"No one has been paid here in cash for six months, and the administration had to look for other schemes. At some plants people are paid with their own products. But we can't pay with trucks," he said.


"The obvious way out is barter. Our trucks are still very popular in Russia and the former Soviet republics. So the plant managed to get a consignment of gold rings, wedding rings, necklaces and other jewelry on one of its contracts in exchange for trucks."


The payments in gold followed the introduction of the internal currency. Instead of money every worker of the plant was given the special Yurik coupons.


The Yuriks could be used to buy milk, bread, meat and other foodstuffs in the special factory food stores -- which also get their supplies through bartered trucks.


"This system is not unique. In our city, all the state factories are in the same situation," said Vydrin. "In a plant near here, for example, they have their own currency, the Basik. Their director's name is Basin."Vydrin was delighted with the payment schemes. "The system gives people the chance to live through these difficult times and produce very good trucks."


Tamara Cherkasova, 35, a worker at the plant, said she thought the gold payments were "great." Given the choice, she would like to "forget about money altogether and always have gold as a salary.


"It is always in demand, you can easily sell it. You can keep it if you want to save; you needn't worry about inflation. The only problem is that there are not enough jewels to go around," she said.


The Mias factory's scheme is one of many being devised to cope with a chronic disease that has hit Russia's budget-financed companies. A chain reaction of intercompany debt has swept the country as manufacturers cannot pay for raw materials because they are in turn not being paid for their finished goods.


Earlier this year, Moscow's Podolsk sewing-machine company gave its workers a sewing machine each in lieu of cash wages.


In another, rather more bizarre, case, a logging company near Arkhangelsk reportedly paid its workers with tampons.