Yeltsin Visit Met With Bile, Gloom

LIPETSK, Central Russia -- If this industrial city in the fertile heartland of Russia is any indicator, President Boris Yeltsin is in serious political trouble.


The mood of the people, which Yeltsin came here Thursday to sample, ranges from gloomy and pessimistic to downright depressed, and both Yeltsin and the military offensive he launched in secessionist Chechnya are very unpopular.


Even among those who consider themselves advocates of democratic reform, support for Yeltsin was faint, with many saying they would back him in another election only if they had no other choice. The vast majority of people interviewed here before and during Yeltsin's one-day visit said they feel betrayed by Yeltsin's economic reforms, were fed up with politics and were sickened by a war in which hundreds of young Russian soldiers have died.


"He robbed the people, made us poor, and now he robs us of our sons," said a tearful Lyudmila Pamarova, 46, whose son has been sent to fight in Chechnya. "We elected Yeltsin because we thought he came from the heart of the Russian people, and now he's cheated us." But while many said they would not support Yeltsin in future elections, few could name any candidate they liked better.


This was Yeltsin's first foray into the hinterlands since the widely unpopular offensive in Chechnya began Dec. 11, and his advisers seem to have anticipated the negative mood. Just Thursday, results of a nationwide poll by the Russian Center for Public Opinion showed Yeltsin's nationwide approval rating had plummeted from a paltry 28 percent in September to an anemic 14 percent now.


Thus they devised a presidential visit that skirted the heavily populated city center and essentially eliminated the possibility of any random public contact. Access to Yeltsin was confined to workers at three factories on the outskirts of the city that have been fairly successful in making a transition to free-market operations and thus can pay higher wages. Most Lipetsk residents seemed unaware that the president was in their city.


Accompanied by a battalion of aides and bodyguards clad in black, Yeltsin met with top factory officials, visited a few workshops, asked a few questions about conditions and shook some hands. After a few minutes answering reporters' questions, Yeltsin sped off through virtually empty streets to a military airport for a flight back to Moscow.


"It's like a visit of the (Soviet Communist Party) general secretary to the masses," said Vitaly Bezrukov, editor of Lipetsk's Panorama magazine and a democratic reformist who no longer supports Yeltsin. "He's doing a publicity tour after the events in Chechnya."


A Yeltsin spokesman said Lipetsk, 200 miles south of Moscow, was picked for the presidential expedition because it is "a traditional Russian region, a stable region." He said Yeltsin came here to "show that Russia is not just Chechnya; Russia is also working people. Here there is calm, quiet, normal life. We don't think about the war. We think about the future."


Lipetsk, a steel production center with a population of about 1.2 million, also happens to have voted heavily for ultranationalists and Communists in December 1993 parliamentary elections that marked a sharp rebuff to Yeltsin's reform agenda. Lipetsk voters also replaced their reformist local government leader with a former Communist Party boss.


If Yeltsin intends to run again for president when his five-year term expires in 1996, he will have to rebuild support in industrial centers like Lipetsk that are still struggling to come to terms with the economic upheaval of the last three years. As part of the effort to rebuild a constituency here, Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais have both visited Lipetsk in recent months.


Yeltsin himself said his trip here would be the first of monthly visits he plans to make to the provinces. On arrival, he acknowledged that many problems exist but sought to portray the economic situation in Russia as improving and suggested it could stabilize by the end of the year. Later, he said the thought the mood of the people here was "good." Lipetsk is "a strong region, a stable region," he said. "No slogans, no extremes."


But few here seemed optimistic. Many factories in Lipetsk are operating at less than full steam, with employees on forced furloughs or receiving paychecks only sporadically. Nearly everyone interviewed blamed Yeltsin for their woes.


"What has he done good for Russia? He's just tricked everyone," said a man named Anatoly, who works at a massive iron and steel plant that Yeltsin visited. "The whole country has fallen apart; in our workshop everyone just says of Yeltsin that he should go to the devil."


At a small grocery shop inside the plant -- which Yeltsin was supposed to visit but did not -- Alexandra Kostikova, 51, was equally angry. "We don't trust Yeltsin, and we don't trust (Defense Minister Pavel) Grachev," she said. "We have to get rid of this old government and bring in new people, younger ones. I don't know who, but people who aren't mixed up in all this."


Such complaints have become familiar throughout Russia over the past few years; what was different here was their ferocity and the new focus on Chechnya. Only a few people expressed support for Yeltsin's decision to launch the military assault there, and many seemed to view it as the final blow to their confidence in his leadership. Eight young men from Lipetsk have already died in the conflict.