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Wanderlust
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The sappers eventually determined that the suspicious object was not a bomb -- the sugar was sugar, and no more -- but the timing device was real. The joke, in the end, was on them, and on the panicked residents of Ryazan -- for this turned out to be a drill conducted by the FSB (the Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB). Just testing.

By any measure this was an astonishingly ill-considered FSB initiative -- and one that only added smoke to the murky and increasingly unstable climate of fear and rumor that had developed in Russia since the beginning of August, when Chechen guerrillas seized villages in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan, a thousand miles south of Moscow, and declared an "Islamic State." Maybe the next time residents notice something unusual, they won't bother to call in. After all, it might be just a drill.

But the danger is real: Hundreds have died in three bomb blasts, to say nothing of the casualties in Dagestan and Chechnya. A few days ago I returned to Moscow, where I have lived for the past seven years, from a trip around the Russian far east, unsure of what I would find. The Russian media spoke of and showed a crackdown of unprecedented proportions, with militia rounding up criminals and "suspects" of Caucasian ethnic background ("Caucasian" here refers to Chechens, Ingushetians and others from the embattled mountainous region of the Caucasus) and city authorities forcing all people visiting Moscow from other Russian cities and from former Soviet republics to re-register themselves. Interior Ministry and army troops were shown on television patrolling the streets with the militia. My Russian friends with whom I had talked on the phone were nervous -- excesses, brutality and arbitrary violence are the rule any time the security forces take mass action in Russia, and no one is safe.

What I found upon my return, apart from newly vigilant grandmas patrolling my courtyard and Interior Ministry troops aggressively cadging cigarettes from passersby, was business that, at first, looked pretty much as usual. From residents in my building I heard that the GAI, or State Traffic Police, were stopping trucks on our corner and extorting bribes of 200 or 300 rubles (about $4 to $6) from drivers, rather than inspecting their holds for bombs. A neighbor alerted militiamen to a package that was standing alone on a street corner; rather than investigate, they went to buy cigarettes from a kiosk and never bothered to check the package. The "crackdown" -- so far -- is largely a matter of graft and aggrandizement for the authorities, and an annoyance for the citizens.

Click here to find out about health and safety when traveling in Russia.

But again, the bombings were real, and the atmosphere in the capital is in fact more tense than it was before. Though it has presented no evidence, the government has blamed the bombings on Chechen and international "Islamic terrorists" and "bandits" operating from bases in southern Russia. The prime minister, Vladimir Putin, who is Yeltsin's chosen successor, has watched his political approval ratings -- at least according the polls the Russian media says it is conducting -- rise and rise as he takes action to "restore order."

At the same time, rumors are circulating that President Yeltsin is about to fire him and appoint retired Gen. Alexander Lebed to the post. Other rumors, meanwhile, posit that the Yeltsin regime rekindled the war in the Caucasus and blew up the apartment buildings to incite panic and justify the declaration of a state of emergency -- which would preclude the holding of parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for the winter and summer. The rumor is based on what is doubtless true: that government officials and the ruling elite, Yeltsin included, fear prosecution for corruption, embezzlement, abuse of power and even genocide against the Russian people (such are the charges that have been bandied about by the communist opposition) if they leave office. Indeed, they fear for their lives. While many leaders in the West, most notably President Clinton and his foreign policy team, have repeatedly voiced their support for Yeltsin and faith in his "reforms," objective indicators show that the Russian president has presided over the most rapid and dramatic decline of a major power in modern times.

In any case, the state media have done much to drive home the gravity of the danger Russia now supposedly faces, and has made it clear that force is the way to restore order -- and order is to be restored by killing "Chechen bandits." To anneal Russian resolve, the media have launched a propaganda campaign. Last weekend Russian television's Channel 2 showed grisly video footage purportedly shot by Chechen rebels: A bearded and swarthy Chechen guerrilla is kneeling on the back of a blond, tied-up and panicked Russian soldier of 18 or 19. The rebel takes a foot-long knife and, smiling at the camera, methodically saws through the squirming boy's throat and neck, bloodily working the knife back and forth, until his head comes off. The guerrilla holds the severed head up for the camera and laughs. The instinctive reaction of the viewer can only be: Exterminate the bastards! Lay waste to the monsters! If this means canceling elections, then so be it!

Next page | Who will control Russia?