DEMOCRACY IN A WHIRL

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On bright, tricolor billboards all across Moscow, Chernomyrdin earnestly appeals to voters to cast their ballots for Our Home Is Russia, the political movement he founded last April in a bid to create a strong centrist party loyal to the Kremlin. IF YOUR HOME IS DEAR TO YOU, the slogan reads.

The former boss of Russia's rich gas industry, Chernomyrdin, 57, was chosen by Yeltsin as Prime Minister in 1992. Discontent with the government runs so high that his incumbency has proved to be a burden. He should count himself lucky if his party finishes in third place. A complete rout could ruin his chances to replace Yeltsin as the standard-bearer of reform in June should the President decide not to run.

ALEXANDER LEBED General in Shining Armor

Even though Lebed, 45, now dresses in pinstripe suits, his bayonet-straight bearing and telegraphic speech immediately mark him as a military man. He is the former commander of Russia's 14th Army in the breakaway Trans-Dniestr region of the republic of Moldova, and he appeals to voters who yearn for a plainspoken general on a white charger to put things in order.

Opinion polls show that Lebed leads the platoon in the presidential race. He is a winning campaigner. When asked by a reporter in the provincial city of Tula whether he had the makings of a tyrant, Lebed described himself as "the very personification of compromise," pointing to his peacemaking role in the war-torn Trans-Dniestr region. A female fan asked him to "smile more often," and he plaintively replied, "What can I do if I was born with this face?"

GRIGORI YAVLINSKY Democratic Wunderkind

At a rally in the Writers' Union House in Moscow, Yavlinsky, 43, leader of the Yabloko bloc, managed to win a few laughs from his earnest audience. During the election campaign, he quipped, the government has promised to do just about everything "except restore virginity." Turning to the topic of the President's health, Yavlinsky wanted to know if "Kremlin" orders would now have to be described as decisions by "the Central Clinical Hospital." It was just the sort of display of intelligence and humor that have made the boyish-looking economist the darling of Moscow's liberal intellectuals ever since he first gained prominence in 1990 as the author of a never-to-be-realized 500-Day Plan for the economic makeover of Russia.

Yavlinsky's party, Yabloko, is the only reform-minded opposition group with a serious chance to win a large number of seats this election year. In democratic strongholds like St. Petersburg, the group tops party preference polls, attracting white-collar professionals. Yavlinsky has kept his personal ratings high by shunning coalitions with other reformers who have been tainted by involvement in the Yeltsin administration.

VLADIMIR ZHIRINOVSKY Past His Peak?

Taking full advantage of seven minutes of free TV time last week, ultranationalist Zhirinovsky expounded his unique view of the world with all the subtlety of a firing Kalashnikov. Barely taking a breath, he railed against the country's new bankers, threatened to rain napalm down on villagers in the Caucasus region who kill Russian soldiers, and promised every hungry Russian a bowl of soup. "Russian fathers, do you know where your daughters are?" Zhirinovsky asked. "They're selling their bodies to buy clothes and cosmetics!"