European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 22, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 16 a the stars and stripes sunday december 22, 1991soviet children Good Economy bad a muscovite reaches for one of the few Snow skis left in a Moscow toy store. Shoppers jostled and shoved each other last week to snatch up whatever toys remained before the traditional new years Holiday which is equivalent to Christmas in the soviet Union. Moscow a Yanina Ivanova Hopes her son appreciates the shiny Black bicycle he is getting this Holiday. She spent eight hours standing in line at Moscow a biggest toy store to buy it. Quot some people come Here at 6 . And wait outside the store before it opens a said Ivanova a Mother of three describing the difficulties of finding gifts for new years Day the soviet equivalent of Christmas. Quot you waste a whole Day to buy one thing a she said. Quot and you want to put something under the new years tree for each  tired and Grumpy after a Days waiting without anything to eat Ivanova fought off a barrage of inquiries from other parents desperate to know if there were any bikes left to buy. Quot its not for Sale a Ivanova snapped even before a weary woman in a White hat could open her Mouth. Quot i done to know where you can get one but this one just Isnit for Sale a the crumbling and cavernous de ski Mir children a world toy store had an empty eerie feel As testy shoppers jostled Ana shoved each other to buy the few toys left before the new years Holiday. In this once atheistic land the Jan. 1 Holiday takes the place of Christmas although an increasing number of people also celebrate the traditional russian Christmas on Jan. 7. On new years eve soviet children fall asleep dreaming of ded Moroz or Grandfather Frost a Jolly roly poly old Man who looks a lot like Santa Claus. If they Are Good he will give them toys he carries in a big sack delivered on a troika Sleigh with the help of his tiny granddaughter Sneg Rochka or Snow girl. But this year ded Morozs sack wont be very heavy. And its not the children who have been naughty its the deteriorating soviet Economy. De ski mires main Hall usually Over flowing with brightly coloured cheap plastic toys and tightly packed crowds has been completely empty for weeks. Even the shelves have been hauled off leaving a dimly lit void scattered with dust balls. Half the stores second floor also is empty. The other half which once sold children a clothing and women a lingerie instead offered tinsel cheap Metal new years tree ornaments and Garish plastic replicas of ded Moroz a i wanted to buy my grandsons a Model plane a said Volodya Zhukov an electrical Engineer in line to buy a Small plastic new years tree. A but even if 1 found one where would i get batteries for it a the stores stairwells and hallways usually filled with eager shoppers bustling from department to department were lined with people surreptitiously hawking the Only dolls for Sale in the entire store. A huge line wound its Way up the stairway to the third floor where it had just been revealed summer sandals were available. Wooden skis from Estonia and byelorussian were practically the Only sports equipment for Sale. Ice skate Blades were offered in one department but Only a few boys boots in limited sizes went with them. A my kids Are still babies but in a trying to buy extra toys for when they get bigger a said Lida Zach Rosova 25. A maybe next year it will get  Zuberi Cius Rimantas travelled from Lithuania to buy toys for his children. In an entire Day of shopping he managed to Purchase Only a Boomerang some magic markers and a few plastic Bath toys. Quot we came All the Way Here because they done to sell new year s Trees in Lithuania a he said resting on the Balcony with his Mother in Law while his wife waited in line for a tree. Clearly disappointed with the selection in Moscow he added a and their toys Are  of Kab repression deceit coming to Light by Alison Mitchell new Day Moscow a Konstantin de Makhin the soviet supplied chauffeur for seven successive British ambassadors decided to Clear his conscience recently and revealed he had been a Kab employee for 20 years reporting on the diplomats he served. He said he had tried to befriend any Diplomat he could and then reported on his character quirks. A whether he was a ladies Man a Money grabber a ski Flint a All his negative features were highly interesting for their Kab purposes a said de Makhin 51, at a news conference. Across town at state television director Yegor Yakovlev received purported files showing that a prominent cultural personality had been a Kab informer. The files even included his signed denunciations of colleagues. But As he dug further Yakovlev said he Learned that an internal War was raging Between two factions in the arts a and one group in its fight against the other got  Yakovlev known As a Liberal journalist decided that such material was better destroyed than publicized. A of course if this happens a certain number of scoundrels will get away a he said. But he added that preserving the reams of secret police reports by informers a is very dangerous because there a a great possibility of blackmail especially if you take into account that an overhaul of the entire Kab is taking  four months after the August coup with the most senior former Kab leadership sacked imprisoned or encouraged to retire some of the secrets of the repressive secret police Monolith Are starting to come to the surface through news conferences confessions document leaks or statements by Public officials. Boris Pankin who served As caretaker foreign minister following the coup revealed recently that More than half the personnel at soviet embassies have been spies. Some of the Kab files could carry significance far beyond the Borders of the soviet Union. The Kab has already provided Abc to with a tantalizing glimpse of its dossier on Lee Harvey Oswald the reported Assassin of president Kennedy. Abc failed to find anything sensational but the secret Agency has promised a Fuller disclosure of the file later. Most of the revelations Are sordid tales of who informed on whom in a social system where people were in whether he was a bodies Man a Money grabber a ski Flint All is negative features were highly interesting for their Kab purposes a Konstantin de Makhin courage to turn in their neighbors and even Many reformers like y Yakovlev fear they could set off a Witch Hunt. Earlier this month a lithuanian parliamentary commission found that Virgilus Cepaitis an adviser to lithuanian president vytautas Landsbergis and the More uncompromising members of the lithuanian Independence movement had been a Kab informant from 1980 to 1988. Other allegations made recently include a a report by Stolitza Magazine said to be written by a former Kab agent who wished to remain Anonymous that 75 percent of the employees at the All russian Stock Exchange Are Kab operatives laundering Money for the Kab and the military Industrial Complex. A numerous charges of cooperation Between the russian orthodox Church and the Kab. A former Kab agent in St. Petersburg told the newspaper Nev Skoye Eremya that until recently Many religious leaders in the City had shared information about parishioners and their moods. A a report by the Moscow newspaper kuranty that the office of publications at the soviet news Agency no Vosti which generated articles for Domestic and International publication until it merged with the russian information Agency had 50 staffers paid twice monthly by no Vosti and once a month by the Kab to Crank out disinformation. Soviet journalists say they Are finding sex Kab officers Many now working As business consultants to be founts of information some of them offering to sell incriminating documents preferably for hard currency not rubles. At Kab Headquarters the new chairman Vadim a Katin is so aware of the possibilities of document theft or tampering that he has handed some sensitive flies to his chief aide Vyacheslav Nikonov for safekeeping among them the dossier on writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn who was stripped of his citizenship and forced into exile by the Kab m 1974. Nikonov said in an interview that the Kab officials want to make sure the file finds its Way Only to Solzhenitsyn if he returns from exile in Vermont and wants to see it. One of the major questions now facing soviet president Mikhail s. Gorbachev a appointees who have taken Over the secret police is How much to reveal to soviet society about itself and its leaders whether decades of flies should be thrown open to reveal the webs of deceit and betrayal or whether to preserve the secrecy of the police archives. The revelations in the archives could be As devastating As in Eastern Europe where the taint of the secret police touched even Reform leaders causing some to resign their posts. Many of the soviet unions current reformers quit the communist party Only recently and could Well have cooperated with the Kab As a result of a system in which the Kab kept staff in every soviet institution encouraged informing and required reports from almost anyone who made official trips abroad. One figure alone shows the scope of the Kab files. Baratin said the dossier on the late human rights crusader Andrei Sakharov amounts to 540 volumes. A if there were such scandals in Eastern Europe and they had less of this monster than we did you can imagine what will be Here a said Yuri Scheko Chichin the journalist who broke the Story about the British ambassadors Driver. Scheko Chichin a respected reformer who is writing a Book about the Kab said the system of informers was so intrusive and senseless that one Kab officer confessed to him that he was under orders to recruit three new informers every year a needed or not needed a it was part of the  in the last year Scheko Chichin said he has received letters or visits from about 1,000 elderly Kab informers seeking to unburden themselves before they die. Many he said were blackmailed into cooperating with the Kab or else took work As informers after the Kab helped them land jobs. A they were scared and now they re scared a he said