Russians take assurances on Y2K with a grain of scepticism

A banner which stretches across many streets in central Moscow reads: "Year 2000: Time to live in Peace, Love and Concord". The average Russian response to such exhortations is one of scepticism encapsulated in the phrase "we'll live and see", the equivalent of our "we'll wait and see" but with a little extra dash of disbelief. There is, after all, a war going on.

It's easy enough to understand such questioning of official statements. Russians were, it should be remembered, promised a "bright future" by the communists and it did not materialise. Then they were promised a "bright future" by the capitalists and it materialised mainly for the capitalists who made the promise.

Now they are being told that everything will be all right after the minute hand on the Kremlin clock passes midnight and the bells strike to announce the arrival of the new millennium. "What Y2K problem?" is the response to computer worries. The public's reply to these reassurances, not surprisingly, is: "We'll live and see."

The key Y2K danger areas have been identified as transport, finance, water supply and communications. One expert has claimed that a single switch controls most of Moscow's telephone network, that this switch is not Y2K-proof and that it is so outdated that its maker cannot be found. If there are no reports from this correspondent early in the New Year you will know why.

As far as transport is concerned there has been some reassurance. On December 7th the main international airport at Sheremetyevo, north of Moscow, and the Russian flag carrier, Aeroflot, carried out an experiment by which it put its clocks on to the witching hour of December 31st. No major disruption was reported. To discover the situation at other airports and with internal carriers we'll just have to "live and see".

The people who run the trains are confident, too, that they will have no problems. Russian trains, unlike a lot of other things in the country, work with an efficiency which puts Iarnrod Eireann to shame. They depart on the dot of time and arrive on schedule, too. I must admit, however, that the last time I met the Trans Siberian Express at the Yaroslavsky Station, on the occasion of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's return to Moscow, the great train pulled into its platform a disgraceful three minutes late at the end of its nine-day journey.

Only a third of the 28,000 computers in Russia's state enterprises have been fixed for Y2K, according to Mr Alexei Ivanov, the head of the State Communications Committee. It sounds bad but it may not be as bad as it sounds. Many of Russia's older computer systems run on a 24-hour cycle only. The day and the date, never mind the year, the century and the millennium, simply don't enter the equation. How many of the remaining 18,000 state computers this applies to we'll just have to "live and see".

While Western experts are predicting power and telephone blackouts in early January followed by what they quaintly describe as "weeks of brownouts", Russians are sanguine about the situation. Blackouts, particularly in the Far East, are commonplace and most of the phones, even in Moscow, work only sporadically.

If there's too much pressure on the electricity grid, we are blithely informed, Russia will have nothing to worry about. The powers that be in the power monopoly will simply throw a switch, plunge Ukraine into darkness and leave the motherland gleaming with light and heat.

Some people have worried about the water supply. The Moscow Water Board says there will be no problem as they can switch to manual if things go wrong. One American colleague who managed to contact the Water Board over the unreliable phone system, received a fax in reply which told him not to fill his bath with water on December 31st. "Fill it with champagne instead and have a happy New Year," was the official advice received.

Then there's the small problem of hundreds of nuclear power stations and tens of thousands of nuclear missiles. We are told that all will be perfect as Russian and US experts have come together to solve all problems. My own attitude as I head to the Kremlin to see the fireworks usher in the Year of Peace, Love and Concord, can be put succinctly as follows: "We'll see and, with a bit of luck, we'll live."