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President Clinton left Washington on Monday for his summit meeting in Moscow with Russian President Yeltsin. But among ordinary Russians facing their own political and economic problems there’s little hope the summit will produce many results. Following a background report by Special Correspondent Simon Marks, Jim Lehrer and guests discuss the upcoming summit.

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SIMON MARKS: In the shadows of the White House the Russian government’s headquarters in the center of Moscow lies a protest now entering its third month. The coal miners of Vorkuta in the Arctic Circle say they won’t budge until Boris Yeltsin resigns, and now they think they don’t have long to wait.

ALEXANDER SEMINOV, Striking Coal Miner: (speaking through interpreter) We think he’ll be gone by the end of September. When we decided to come here, we said we’d get rid of him by September, us, the miners who used to support him. That was our task. He’s incapable; he’s old material; he can’t think; he can’t talk; he can’t do anything concrete anymore.

SIMON MARKS: Boris Yeltsin used to count on the miners of Vorkuta for support. In his 1996 re-election campaign he visited their coal field, promised them new cars, better wages, and improved working conditions. Now, Alexander Seminov says he and his colleagues were duped. They haven’t been paid in 10 months because the government is out of cash. They dismiss Yeltsin’s vow to remain in office and have no confidence in any government formed by Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin.

ALEXANDER SEMINOV: (speaking through interpreter) You know, people think that workers are stupid; they won’t figure things out. But we saw through all of this a long time ago. If the president or the government won’t take responsibility for the fate of the people, then somebody has to step forward and lead the fight against them. There’s no way around it.

SIMON MARKS: The last time fighting talk was heard from ordinary people ringing the White House it was 1991. Then a generation of Russians streamed to the building to defend Yeltsin and rise up against the coup plotters trying to overthrow Gorbachev. Now it’s Yeltsin’s future at stake. As the miners camped out all weekend, the president’s negotiators were discussing power-sharing with the country’s Communist-dominated parliament. Whatever happens next here politically, whether Yeltsin stays or goes, whether Chernomyrdin proves capable of dealing with the current crisis, many here believe the events of the past few weeks have taken a deeper toll. As the country’s financial crisis has worsened and the ruble has continued to tumble, millions of people have had their faith in economic reform shattered and restoring that faith could prove to be a lengthy, complex task. This morning, nervous lines once again formed outside the city’s banks as people here attempted to get their hands on their own money. Dollar withdrawals are a thing of the past. ATM’s are closed, and a number of rubles account holders can withdraw are restricted in a bid to prevent a run on the banks. Waiting patiently to see whether he could get his money, Gary Vadimov, who was due to close on an apartment today--without the cash, he’ll lose his new home.

GARY VADIMOV, Retiree: (speaking through interpreter) We didn’t want to come here, but everyone is panicking because the banks stopped paying money out to people whose investments have matured. Word started to spread that no money was being paid out at all, so crowds were gathering. We didn’t want to come here at all, but when we found out that they weren’t giving out any money, we’ve been waiting a week now.

SIMON MARKS: There’s no outward sign of panic in Moscow. More a sense of fatalism about Russia’s destiny and a sense that whatever message President Clinton is bringing cannot help resolve the nation’s problems.

TATANIA LUKANINA, Unemployed Economist: (speaking through interpreter) I doubt it will change a thing because we need to sort out our own problems. I doubt that President Clinton or any other powerful foreign leaders can change anything here. It’s our business.

SIMON MARKS: The city’s electronic stores were all closed this weekend for technical reasons, read the signs. People were also turned away from stores selling sporting goods and the other fruits of economic reform. The store owners don’t want to sell their inventory until the economic picture stabilizes and they know how much to charge, meaning Larissa Trefilova can’t buy a pair of hockey skates for her four-year-old son, Constantine. Her thoughts on President Clinton’s arrival—

LARISSA TREFILOVA, Housewife: (speaking through interpreter) I think there will be very few results from this meeting. They held high level meetings like this before, and they haven’t resulted in any changes. We’re just ordinary people. We don’t feel any results. I don’t have any faith in this meeting.

SIMON MARKS: Someone else with limited faith is Natasha Smokova, twenty-six years old, a waitress in a trendy Tex-Mex restaurant just around the corner from the Kremlin. She and her colleagues are Russia’s next generation. This weekend, as they started their shifts, the waiters were learning the café’s prices have doubled. About the only people eating here, a group of German tourists. So ask Natasha Smokova now about capitalism and this Russian Gen X’er gives an old style reply.

NATASHA SMOKOVA, Waitress: (speaking through interpreter) I don’t think this is the right system for us. Maybe we should take some things from it and combine them with something new to get good results. But full capitalism, I don’t buy it. Russia doesn’t need it.

SIMON MARKS: And that may be the most troubling impact of recent events here, the fact that even those few Russians who have experienced the benefits of the country’s experiment with democracy now feel so badly let down.

LARISSA TREFILOVA: (speaking through interpreter) I’ve got to say that, in all honesty, I lived better under communism. Things were calmer. We were confident. We had faith in the future for us and our children. So I hold that time dear.

SIMON MARKS: Despite the crisis, some new businesses are going ahead with their scheduled debuts. In Moscow’s Pushkin Square last Friday a new teen-age magazine was holding a launch party, complete with rock music, models, readers who can barely remember communism. The question for Russia now, whether anything can be salvaged, or whether the free market experiment here is a bubble that’s been burst.

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