Yeltsin Creating A Free Market Election

Vera Tarazanova walked out of a savings bank here Monday clutching a walking cane in one hand and a tight wad of five $100 bills in the other.

Four years after President Boris N. Yeltsin had reduced her life’s savings to mere kopeks by freeing prices, he made good on a promise to pay compensation to Tarazanova and other elderly pensioners.

But she still isn’t going to vote for him.

“It’s too late. I’m already leaning toward (Grigory) Yavlinsky,” said Tarazanova, 83, who was pleased nevertheless with the windfall from Yeltsin.

In the final run-up to Sunday’s presidential election, Yeltsin is handing out cash as fast as he can print it, hoping it will pump up his margin against his rival, Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov.

Yeltsin had $1 billion transferred last week from the central bank’s currency reserves to the federal budget, against the wishes of financial advisers. There are six more spending days to go before the vote, and the question is: How much money can Yeltsin drop before he breaks the bank?

Monday, Yeltsin was paying an average of $200 to every person over 80 - that is, those born before the 1917 Communist revolution.

But Yeltsin has a little something for every interest group. While he was at it Monday, he threw in $10 million to finish the metro system in Novosibirsk, where he was on a campaign swing.

The day before, he stopped in the tiny southern Russian village of Novominshastovskaya for just a few minutes, but managed to spend a couple of million dollars for a new church.