Sticker Shock At The Bakery -- Soviet Bread Price Up 600% In Day

MOSCOW - There was a surprise waiting for Galina Sokolova when she walked into bread store No. 458 on her way home from work last night.

The price of her round brown loaf - the most essential of all staples in the Russian diet - had risen by 600 percent since lunchtime.

All she could do was laugh weakly when asked whether she felt deceived by the promises of city authorities to keep down the cost of some staples.

"Who believed them, anyway?" said the 45-year-old translator, pulling more coins from her purse. "We have no idea what is coming from one day to the next."

Aware that bread shortages in St. Petersburg in 1917 helped trigger the Bolshevik takeover, Soviet governments have never tampered with the relationship between Russians and their bread. Subsidies ensured that loaves, plenty of them, were available at very low prices.

But with the economy on the verge of collapse and the old supply system in ruins, something finally had to give, and yesterday afternoon it did.

A loaf of basic brown bread that sold for 20 kopeks last March and 60 kopeks yesterday morning shot up to 3.60 rubles after lunch. (There are 100 kopeks in a ruble). A loaf of white bread, now 88 kopeks, is rising to 5.80 rubles today.

At the official exchange rate, the change boosted the price of the brown loaf from about 35 cents to about $2.10 and the white bread from about 60 cents to about $3.40.

The average national wage now is about 400 rubles a month.

Store No. 458 is on the Moscow river just across from the headquarters of the Russian government, where thousands rallied in resistance to last August's attempted coup.

"We should have shot them rather than defend them," said Nadezhda Kurcheva, a cashier at the shop.

Since Russian President Boris Yeltsin revealed earlier this month that prices would double and triple in the package of economic reforms he planned to introduce by next year, the costs of many items have already begun to rise.

The price of a pound of meat in Moscow markets - where prices are not controlled, as they are in government stores - has tripled. Similar increases have been seen in the price of eggs, fruit and vegetables.

Despite some grumbling, Soviets have so far paid the higher prices without revolt. With most consumer goods in scarce supply and with rents still held at rock-bottom levels by the government, some Soviets have large cash savings to draw on.

President Bush was expected today to announce $2 billion more in food and medical assistance to the Soviet Union to help its citizens survive the winter, congressional aides said yesterday. The aid would be in addition to $2.5 billion in loan guarantees issued earlier this year.

-- Information from Chicago Tribune is included in this article.