No wish to return to old ways in "window to the west"

ON SATURDAYS the fascists, carrying red flags with stylised swastikas embossed in gold, hold a weekly "rally" near the Gostinny Dvor, the old Tsaris trading house, on St Peters burg's Nevsky Prospekt.

The attendance can usually be counted in tens. Passers by look on with contempt. Fascism is not popular in a city which survived a 900day siege by the Nazis in the second World War; neither is communism.

Built by Peter the Great to replace Moscow as Russia's capital and provide a "window to the west", St Petersburg has always been the most "European" city in Russia. Its inhabitants consider themselves more cultured in everyday life and more liberal in their political views than anywhere else in the world's largest country.

This is the heartland of Russian democracy. Glasnost took root in St Petersburg more quickly than in Moscow; democratic candidates have far higher ratings here than anywhere else.

In the elections for the State Duma (lower house of the Russian parliament) in December 1995, Russians in their millions turned to the Communist Party, led by presidential contender Mr Gennady Zyuganov, and gave them effective control.

Moscow and St Petersburg were exceptions. In Moscow voters turned to the pro Yeltsin Our Rome is Russia party led by the Prime Minister, Mr Viktor Chernomyrdin. In St Petersburg it was the anti Yeltsin democrats who ruled the roost.

St Petersburgers, particularly young people, are dismayed by the possibility of a return to power by the communists, and although they are not at all happy with the possibility of President Yeltsin being in power for a second term, they now feel forced to vote for him as the only realistic alternative to a return to communism.

Students of the Celtic department in the city's Institute for Foreign Languages welcomed this correspondent with enthusiastic greetings in Irish, eagerly asked questions about the peace process and declared to a young man and young woman that Clannad was perhaps the best music group in the world.

Later, in the warmth of the Shamrock Bar near the Mariinsky Theatre, when the talk turned to Russia the cheerfulness died down. Most of the young people had been just children when glasnost and perestroika were introduced. All of their adult lives had been lived in the "New Russia". The prospect of returning to a system which they had heard about from parents and older relatives left them apprehensive.

Would they, they worried, be able to speak freely? Would there be restrictions on travel? Would western youth culture be regarded as decadent" once again?

They and the majority of St Petersburgers will vote against a return to the old days. They are also likely to express their disillusionment with the corrupt politics and the authoritarianism which lies under the surface of the Yeltsin administration.

There is, however, strong pressure on the local population to support Mr Yeltsin. St Petersburg, like most big cities in Russia, is almost an independent fiefdom. In this case the mayor, Mr Anatoly Sobchak, is the local king maker and he came out strongly for Mr Yeltsin following talks with the German Chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl.

When the former Soviet president, Mr Mikhail Gorbachev, launched his campaign in St Petersburg, Mr Sobchak showed his hand. The mayor refused to meet him, he was banned by mayoral decree from staying at a city owned hotel and meetings with workers at some of the city's major industrial plants were cancelled.

Mr Yavlinksy, the city's favourite national politician, has fared somewhat better and has even been interviewed on local TV. His anti war rally in front of the great baroque Winter Palace attracted about 2,000 people, a large demonstration in today's Russia. Though he himself mused about the old days when tens of thousands of St Petersburgers rallied there to protest at the actions of Soviet forces in Lithuania where civilians had been killed in their tens rather than in their tens of thousands as in Chechnya.

The people of this great and extremely beautiful city have become apathetic to politics. They feel unable to change things and dictated to from the top once again. Very few of them like it, except perhaps for an old communist who sat by the great arch leading into Palace Square and sang: "It is our utmost duty to obey your will." The person whose will he referred to in song was Josef Stalin.

Agencies add: Mayor Sobchak and Mr Vladimir Yakovlev, his deputy mayor turned rival, fought a close second round contest for the city's governorship yesterday. The turnout was 43 per cent with a minimum of 25 per cent needed to make the election valid.

With around 590,000 votes counted by midnight, Mr Yakovlev had 47.8 per cent compared with 45.8 for Mr Sobchak.

Meanwhile, President Yeltsin has widened his lead over Mr Zyuganov with two weeks left before the presidential elections. An opinion poll for Moscow NTV showed support for Mr Yeltsin at 35 per cent while Mr Zyuganov trailed with 24 per cent, a fall of 3 per cent from last week.