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In an effort to receive back wages, miners blocked off the TranSiberian railroad in January in Primorsky Krai. They were not the only workers on the state payroll who suffered.
Teachers, medical workers and other like them were also on strike in 78 regions of Russia this past month. Although the mass media has accuse the regional administrations, it is the acting government which is to blame, says Gregory Yavlinsky, leader of the YaBLoko party of the State Duma. One of the basic positions of Boris Yeltsin's presidential program was to put the payment of back wages and pensions in order.
He said recently that they had not paid back wages in only five or six regions, but Yavlinsky maintains that is a lie. The President's actions only try to veil the real level of unemployment in the country (if one could determine unemployment as the inab ility to receive a payment for the job).
The government ended the last quarter of the year owing 10 billion "new" rubles to the state payroll workers. Actually, the governmental debt was close to 60 billion "new" rubles if the sphere of production is kept in mind. The total sum of non-payments in Russia has amounted to 750 billion "new" rubles in the last quarter of 1997, which indicates a level of unemployment between 20%-25%. Accordingly, YaBLoko has asked for the resignation of the current government.
At a sitting of the Leninsky district court of February 5, a claim by General Kondratov, Presidential Representative in Primorsky Krai, against Governor Nazdratenko, Profile magazine and its reporter Natalia Shiryaeva, has again been postponed, due to d efault of representatives of the journal. In an interview given to the journal on June 30, 1997, Governor Nazdratenko said that when General Kondratov assumed the chair of the Federal Security Headquarters of Primorsky Krai, the best workers left the se rvice and crime then increased in the region.