By 5 p.m., streetlamps flicker on in front of Leningrad's palatial city hall and a blanket of luminescent mist settles over the gilded dome of St. Isaac's Cathedral, just across the square. Night and fog come early now to the far northern city, built on islands in the Neva River. But the workday is far from over for Leningrad Mayor Anatoli Sobchak. In his elegant second-floor office, once used by the Czars, he reflects on the problems of this metropolis of 5 million, famed as the cradle of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. "I feel as if I am wrapped in cotton...
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