Striding toward the Tretyakov Gallery recently with a train of dark-suited aides in tow, Yury Luzhkov wordlessly clapped his hands and the entire entourage halted on a dime. The mayor of Moscow wanted to stop and admire the gallery's renovated facade.Stronger than privatization minister Anatoly Chubais, more popular in Moscow than President Boris Yeltsin, able to leapfrog federal legislation, Luzhkov exudes power.He denounces privatization and federal privatization stops in Moscow. He declares there are too many kiosks on a square and the boxy emporia disappear.And in a recent poll, Muscovites gave Luzhkov by far the highest approval rating of any politician with Yeltsin trailing far behind even as they panned his city's crime rate, housing and economy.How does he do it? The mayor of Moscow has automatic clout, as did the capital's Communist Party boss in days gone by. Home to one in 15 Russians, Moscow soaks up one-third of foreign investment in the country and provides 15 percent of federal tax revenues.But officials from the Russian government to the office of Luzhkov's arch-enemy Chubais agree the mayor's influence is greater even than warranted by Moscow's preeminence.Supporters say Luzhkov earned his authority with plain talk, experience as a Soviet manager and rapport with Muscovites. Critics say his power comes from corruption in the city apparatus and a willingness to use strongarm tactics.Everyone agrees the stocky, garrulous Luzhkov is a formidable personality and shrewd politician."Luzhkov is such a bulldog," said Mikhail Berger, political analyst for Izvestia. "He is a man of enormous political ambition."Luzhkov has managed to hold onto many old bureaucratic controls while seizing new levers of power in the emerging market economy.Wearing the hat of a Soviet bureaucrat, he has:?retained city ownership of virtually all Moscow property and large enterprises?kept the restrictive residence permit system jettisoned elsewhere by a federal freedom-of-movement law?micromanaged the city economy, right down to ordering extra eggs for Easter and forcing stores to install decorative window lighting.Yet as ambassador to foreign investors, he has exhorted Moscow to attain Western prosperity and made his government a power broker which every would-be developer must reckon with."The whole city economy is subordinate to Luzhkov personally," said a Russian business journalist who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals. She said Luzhkov and his relatives control banks, companies and stock exchanges, often through third persons, a charge the city denies.Berger said that as the man who physically controls Moscow, Luzhkov holds even the powerful in "direct dependence.""Even a federal minister who needs office space for his ministry or for some other organization finds himself needing to ask for Luzhkov's help," said Berger. "He could evict the State Property Committee tomorrow," said the business journalist, only half-joking about Chubais' organization, located in a plush building off Red Square.But it was Luzhkov's strong influence with Yeltsin that led to his most impressive victory. He bested Chubais in a struggle for control of privatization in the capital recently when Yeltsin pledged to order Chubais to keep his "hands off Moscow."That cleared the way for Luzhkov's "special" privatization plan, which would slow sell-offs, give the city sweeping controls over privatized businesses and forbid land privatization, in defiance of several federal decrees. Yeltsin has favored Luzhkov since early 1993, when both mayor and president were locked in battle with holdover Soviet-era legislatures and Yeltsin gave Luzhkov special powers to appoint Moscow's police chief, pass its budget and make other decisions over the heads of the recalcitrant Moscow City Council.Then came the October rebellion. Since the mayor controls the city police, transport and communications, his support was a key factor in Yeltsin's victory over opposition leaders holed up in the White House. "Without Luzhkov, it would have been impossible even to turn off the electricity in the White House," said Berger. "Yeltsin is Luzhkov's political debtor."After the city council's dissolution, Yeltsin allowed Luzhkov to write his own city charter rather than abide by a federal blueprint. Luzhkov helped himself to a veto-less City Duma.Though Luzhkov was never elected, he moved from vice mayor to mayor in 1991 when Gavriil Popov resigned. In a random telephone poll by Moscow State University's Center for Sociological Research, 907 Muscovites gave him a higher approval rating -- 42.6 percent -- than any other politician.Asked whether Luzhkov "expresses your interests," 41.3 percent said yes, while only 27.9 percent said Yeltsin did, 8.0 percent said the City Duma did, and 7.4 percent said the parliament did.Michael Oster, an American in the Moscow real estate business, credited Luzhkov with perfect populist pitch that appeals to Russians equally turned off by radical reformers and extreme nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky.He envisioned giving Russians a choice between "a fascist like Zhirinovsky," a "real Western democrat like Chubais," who is perceived as "trying to make Russia into another America," and Luzhkov, "who believes that business should happen and trade should expand, but that there should be limits, that speculators should not be allowed unlimited sums of money and kiosks should not dirty the streets."My guess would be 80 percent would vote for Luzhkov," he said.