Vladivostok

Riot police clubbed, kicked and detained dozens of demonstrators in the Pacific port of Vladivostok in a harsh crackdown on a protest that was one of dozens nationwide by people outraged over an increase in car import tariffs. Imported used cars are highly popular among Russians, particularly throughout the Far East. Hundreds rallied in Vladivostok on Saturday for the second weekend in a row, and several hundred demonstrators refused to disperse as ordered Sunday. Police hauled them into vans Several people were beaten, and at least 10 journalists were detained.

For the last 12 years, Mikhail and Irina Lennikov have lived unremarkable lives, not unlike countless other immigrants who came to Canada from Eastern Europe looking for a fresh start in a prosperous and quiet land. He found a job as a software developer. She got hired in an insurance office. Their son, Dmitri, who barely remembers Russia, graduated last month from Byrne Creek Secondary School in the comfortable suburb of Burnaby.

Five months after they last got paid, the miners of the Russian Far East are beginning to starve. By Friday, all 10,000 of them had stopped work--not, they say, out of ill will but simply because they are just too weak to handle the tough conditions underground. No coal is being extracted. The region's power plant workers, themselves unpaid for months, also are refusing to operate the stations that supply electricity to the factories, homes and port of the local capital, Vladivostok.

Riot police clubbed, kicked and detained dozens of demonstrators in the Pacific port of Vladivostok in a harsh crackdown on a protest that was one of dozens nationwide by people outraged over an increase in car import tariffs. Imported used cars are highly popular among Russians, particularly throughout the Far East. Hundreds rallied in Vladivostok on Saturday for the second weekend in a row, and several hundred demonstrators refused to disperse as ordered Sunday. Police hauled them into vans Several people were beaten, and at least 10 journalists were detained.

For the last 12 years, Mikhail and Irina Lennikov have lived unremarkable lives, not unlike countless other immigrants who came to Canada from Eastern Europe looking for a fresh start in a prosperous and quiet land. He found a job as a software developer. She got hired in an insurance office. Their son, Dmitri, who barely remembers Russia, graduated last month from Byrne Creek Secondary School in the comfortable suburb of Burnaby.

Fifteen people have been killed by diphtheria in the Far Eastern port of Vladivostok, the latest Russian city hit by the epidemic. Physicians in Vladivostok blamed the outbreak on unsanitary conditions and the migration of people to and from the region, the ITAR-Tass news agency said Friday. So far, 700 cases have been reported.

As Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan struggle to cut the so-far elusive strategic-arms-reduction deal (START), the experts continue to bet against them. For my part, I'm not so sure. I'm down on my knees thinking of an earlier summit and begging whatever gods may be, "Please, no Vladivostok aide memoire. " Ah, Vladivostok. Late November, 1974. The train, the snow, the conviviality, the half-dozen remaining SALT I issues. And finally the nuclear deal.

For almost 35 years, the Far East Soviet port of Vladivostok has been closed to nearly all foreigners to protect the military secrets of its Pacific fleet and air force. Now, however, in the spirit of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev's glasnost policy, Vladivostok is about to open its doors. A recent visit by a Los Angeles Times reporter, the first visit by any American journalist since 1975, was one signal of the imminent change of policy.

A sampling of opinion taken on a Moscow-Vladivostok train indicated strong skepticism about Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev's programs to revitalize the economy. The results of the poll, published this weekend in the weekly Moscow News, showed 71% of the travelers saying that they have a "watchful" attitude toward perestroika, or restructuring. Only 16% described themselves as "enthusiastic," while almost as many, 13%, acknowledged a "negative" attitude, the newspaper said.

ACROSS THE PACIFIC OCEAN, a never-ending war of maneuver is under way. It is a three-dimensional struggle--under sea, on the water and in the air--that pits the U.S. Navy against a Soviet fleet three times its size. The prize is control over half the world's surface. The weapons are multimillion-dollar ships and planes, as well as a vast array of sophisticated electronics that could provide the winning advantage if a conflict between the superpowers ever erupts.

At 6 p.m., the lights go out. Refrigerators clank to a stop and residents of this port city begin to grumble about yet another evening of cooking dinner on portable camp stoves. Periodic power outages, mounds of garbage on the streets and salaries that are months overdue are just a few signs of the decay and poverty that have gripped Vladivostok, the largest city in Russia's Far East.

At 6 p.m. the lights go out. Refrigerators clank to a stop, and residents of this port city begin to grumble about yet another evening of cooking dinner on portable camp stoves. Periodic power outages, mounds of garbage on the streets and salaries that are months overdue are just a few signs of the decay and poverty that have gripped Vladivostok, the largest city in Russia's Far East.

Five months after they last got paid, the miners of the Russian Far East are beginning to starve. By Friday, all 10,000 of them had stopped work--not, they say, out of ill will but simply because they are just too weak to handle the tough conditions underground. No coal is being extracted. The region's power plant workers, themselves unpaid for months, also are refusing to operate the stations that supply electricity to the factories, homes and port of the local capital, Vladivostok.

Fifteen people have been killed by diphtheria in the Far Eastern port of Vladivostok, the latest Russian city hit by the epidemic. Physicians in Vladivostok blamed the outbreak on unsanitary conditions and the migration of people to and from the region, the ITAR-Tass news agency said Friday. So far, 700 cases have been reported.

When a retired New York grocer first ventured here with utopian plans for an American-style supermarket, it cost him a night in a Soviet police station. This Pacific port city, home of the world's largest naval base, was still officially off limits to foreigners. Three years later, the Soviet Union is long gone, capitalists are remaking Russia, Vladivostok is a wide-open city--and Dick Schindler, a cheerful, persistent man of 65, is about to launch his pioneer project.

A blast Thursday at a large arsenal in a densely populated district of Russia's Pacific port city of Vladivostok triggered thousands of other explosions, which thundered for hours and forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes in fear for their lives, officials and local reporters said. "It sounds and looks like the city has become the front in a war," Igor A. Kots, a correspondent for the national Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, said by telephone from the scene.

When he died in 1974, George Abraham Simmons left a bulky legacy: boxes and boxes of drugstore pills, salves and potions - enough to fill multiple cargo containers. What to do with it all? His family was stumped. Pharmaceuticals and botanicals, rouges, deodorants and still-sealed packs of cigarettes - he'd accumulated around 85,000 items. Photos: New life for old corner drugstore To label Simmons a hoarder, though, would be oversimplifying. Take a moment to understand his world.

At 6 p.m., the lights go out. Refrigerators clank to a stop and residents of this port city begin to grumble about yet another evening of cooking dinner on portable camp stoves. Periodic power outages, mounds of garbage on the streets and salaries that are months overdue are just a few signs of the decay and poverty that have gripped Vladivostok, the largest city in Russia's Far East.

America's nearest overseas neighbor is the Soviet Union. Yet our view of that country is Eurocentric; we tend to look at it the long way, eastward across the Atlantic instead of westward across the Pacific. Many people in Vladivostok, the leading city of Pacific Siberia, are urging us to look across the Pacific. Don't ignore the regions closest to you, they say.

A Japanese television producer, frustrated in his attempts to communicate with counterparts in the Soviet East Asian capital of Vladivostok, gave two fax machines to the local television station in July. It was a nice try, but Hiroshi Kikuchi's gift failed to remedy the situation. When he returned to Japan, he found telephone lines were so poor he could not get through to his fax machines.