From: "Curtis Price" <cansv-AT-igc.apc.org>
Date:          Tue, 5 Aug 1997 10:42:54 +0000
Subject: AUT: (Fwd) Russian sailors called to help remove mounting garbage


------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date:          Mon, 4 Aug 1997 16:46:10 -0700
From:          NewsHound <NewsHound-AT-hound.com>

Reply-to:      NewsHound-AT-hound.com
Subject:       Russian sailors called to help remove mounting garbage



NewsHound article from "STRIKES" hound, score "77."



Russian sailors called to help remove mounting garbage

BY HEIDI BROWN
Associated Press Writer


VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (AP) -- With a monthlong garbage >>strike<< attracting
armies of flies and rats, the government has called on Russia's armed
forces to help clear away mountains of garbage rotting on the streets of
this Far East port city.

The garbage trouble is the latest in a series of political, economic and
social problems plaguing the Russian Far East. And to many, it symbolizes
the government's inability to provide even basic services in a region that
has abundant natural resources and is potentially prosperous.

Victor Kondratov, President Boris Yeltsin's representative in the region,
personally asked the military to help clear away the waste last week.
Sailors from Russia's Pacific Fleet and border guards pitched in on
Wednesday and Thursday -- apparently with some reluctance.

The military did not immediately acknowledge its role, though witnesses saw
sailors in uniform collecting garbage.

``Border guards and the Pacific Fleet and other military services were
assisting the city administration, but we are no longer able to,'' Sergei
Kozov, a spokesman for the border guards, said Monday. ``We must protect
the borders and be prepared for combat.''

Pacific Fleet spokesman Victor Rizhkov said sailors were taken off garbage
duty because ``the clean-up was organized by the city and we didn't even
have shovels.''

The military men scooped up hundreds of tons of the trash to improve
conditions, at least temporarily. But many garbage piles remain and are
growing larger by the day in Vladivostok, the largest city in Russia's Far
East with a population of 800,000.

The >>strike<< continues, the result of a dispute between the mayor and
sanitation >>workers<<. The two sides have yet to sign a contract this
year, and after working for free for six months, the >>workers<< went on
>>strike<< at the beginning of July.

The result is ripe, gooey trash -- in front of apartment buildings, flowing
out of city trash cans and covering the hills of the city.

Swarms of flies and a growing numbers of rats are visible in the city, and
the sanitation and health departments are issuing increasingly ominous
warnings.

Cases of tuberculosis, hepatitis A and kidney problems caused by pests have
all increased, and there are fears that a cholera epidemic will break out
if the trash is not cleaned up soon.

Vladivostok Mayor Victor Cherepkov has been locked in a feud with other
municipal officials and accuses the sanitation >>workers<< of leaving ``the
city to its own fate.''

``They not only continue >>striking<< but prevent order from being
established,'' the mayor said.

To compound the problem, all the 2,500 people who clean and repair
apartment buildings have been on >>strike<< for six to nine months to
demand payment of back wages.

The citywide mess has done nothing to increase the mayor's popularity.

``He's waging a war,'' street vendor Lyuba Chailupanova said about
Cherepkov. ``The city is a pig sty. It was never, ever like this before.''



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