From: trh@jack.sns.com (Al Trh)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: News, 1 Jan {from Haluk}
Date: 6 Jan 1993 00:40:46 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
Reply-To: Turkish Cultural Program List <TRKNWS-L%USCVM.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU>
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

 : Russian exit visas abolished/ Free Gas and Electricity in Turkmenistan
 : Four killed by shelling in Black Sea city

 Russian exit visas abolished/ Free Gas and Electricity in Turkmenistan

        MOSCOW (UPI) -- Russians no longer need exit visas to travel and
 residents of Turkmnistan will get free gas and electricity under rules
 that took effect Friday in efforts to lessen the burdens of economic
 chaos and an uncertain future.
        The Russian Parliament last week agreed to put into effect a law
 passed in May 1991 by the now-defunct Soviet legislature that for the
 first time in over 70 years allowed free exit and entry.
        While the elimination of the exit visa requirement will simplify the
 procedure for foreign travel, visits will still be limited by other
 administrative requirements and the need for entry visas to most
 countries.
        In the former Soviet Central Asian republic of Turkmenistan,
 President Saparmurad Niyazov ordered that free gas and electricity be
 provided to the republic's 3.5 million people.
        The populist president has been accused of building a personality
 cult in Turkmenistan, a backward but resource-rich state about the size
 of California. Several streets have been named after him in the capital
 Ashgabad and elsewhere.
        Turkmenistan extracts 2.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas a year,
 and domestic needs account for 35 billion cubic feet, according to some
 estimates. Gasoline costs about 30 rubles per U.S. gallon -- about seven
 U.S. cents.
        In Russia, the abolition of exit visas radically simplifies the
 procedure for foreign travel, leading some officials to predict a flood
 of 15 to 20 million people applying for foreign passports over the next
 few months.
        Before Friday, Russians who wanted to go abroad first had to obtain a
 foreign passport and then a special exit visa. Every new trip, whether
 for business or pleasure, required a new exit visa.
        Soviets applying to their local registration office would often have
 to wait months for visas, but despite the long waits foreign travel
 increased after former President Mikhail Gorbachev liberalized
 restrictions in the late 1980s.
        Before Gorbachev, Soviets needed the blessing of their local
 Communist Party committee, as well as references from employers and
 trade union organizations, before they could even apply for a visa.
        Even under Gorbachev, travel restrictions were still strictly
 enforced against people with access to state secrets -- a very broad
 category in Soviet Russia.
        The state secret limitation remains under the new system, although
 officials promise it will be less rigidly applied and say Russians can
 apply for compensation or legal redress if they feel their right to free
 travel is being violated.
        People who face criminal charges or who have outstanding alimony
 payments are also not allowed to go abroad, according to the new law.
        The regime may be more liberal now, but major obstacles to foreign
 travel remain. Foreign passports issued after Jan. 1 will cost 5,000-10,
 000 rubles ($12-24) -- an average monthly industrial wage and expensive
 enough to deter many from applying.
        Foreign travel has also become increasingly costly since airline
 prices were freed this year. An economy class return ticket to London on
 the state airline Aeroflot costs 97,125 rubles ($234) -- a year's average
 salary.
        Train ticket prices are also due to double in January.
        Russians also face having visa applications turned down by foreign
 consulates in Moscow. Some countries are tightening entry regulations,
 fearing a mass exodus of economic refugees from Russia in pursuit of a
 better standard of living in the prosperous West.
 =========================================================================
 Four killed by shelling in Black Sea city

        MOSCOW (UPI) -- Shelling by Abkhazian separatists killed four people
 Thursday in the Georgian city of Sukhumi on the Black Sea coast, the
 Russian state news agency Itar-Tass said.
        Sukhumi, just 80 miles east of the resort town of Sochi where Russian
 President Boris Yeltsin and President Bush were to meet this weekend to
 sign the START II accord, is the capital of the breakaway Abkhazia
 region of the Caucasian republic of Georgia.
        Georgian government troops currently hold the city, which Abkhazian
 rebels have been trying to seize since the armed conflict began in
 August.
        Georgian forces have held off Abkhazian fighters at the banks of the
 Gumista river just west of Sukhumi for months, with neither side making
 significant advances.
        The shelling on New Year's Eve in Georgia came in contrast to the
 relative calm that settled over another ethnic war zone in the former
 Soviet Union.
        In the disputed Nagorno Karabakh territory, an Armenian-populated
 enclave in Azerbaijan, there was a lull in the four-year war that
 permitted residents of the regional center Stepanakert to celebrate the
 holiday, the independent Interfax news agency reported.
        For the first time in recent memory, luxuries such as champagne,
 candy and tangerines were available in local shops, and a 10-meter fir
 tree was set up in the central square, giving war-weary residents the
 chance, ``to see in the New Year properly,'' said Interfax.
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