SHCHUCHYE, Russia - Distrust and fear run deep in this impoverished town in western Siberia, deeper than the large pools of snowmelt that have filled gardens and cellars, sewage ducts and wheatfields, streets and yards.

In 1993, the residents of Shchuchye were stunned to learn that they had been the unwitting hosts for one of the world's largest and deadliest stockpiles of chemical weapons - nearly 6,000 tons of lethal nerve agents, created to wipe out humans the way insecticides kill bugs.

And they have not forgotten that their leaders in faraway Moscow, 975 miles to the west, lied to them for years, repeatedly denying the arsenal's existence until long after the Cold War was over.

Now the Russian government plans to destroy the weapons, using American funding and know-how, and bury the residual waste in bunkers located above the level of groundwater. Ask folks in Shchuchye what they think of that and the answer, right now in flood season, is invariably the same: not in my back lake.

''Look around town, and tell me where the surface water ends and the groundwater begins,'' quipped Alexander Zaikov, the affable chief doctor at Shchuchye's woefully underequipped hospital, as he drove visitors through the waterlogged neighborhoods.

Tatyana Sirota, a vendor at Shchuchye's small produce market, was more blunt.

''We feel like flies who will be poisoned,'' she said.

But this is not just the story of an abusive, secretive government indifferent to the concerns of its people. Russia has changed, and nowhere is that more evident than in the efforts of the very people who once designed these weapons and kept them a well-guarded secret. Now they are trying to get rid of them safely and keep the people who live here informed and involved in the process.

The weapons, some 2 million shells and missile warheads laid out like wine bottles in a sprawling underground facility near Shchuchye, are an unsightly legacy of the Cold War.

Military officials and chemical arms specialists, until recently forbidden by law even to mention the weapons, now answer questions at public meetings and open hearings in the local legislature. Public outreach offices, with the approval of the military, issue detailed briefings to answer public concerns about the safety of the project. US military officials, once seen as the ideological enemy, are now accepted as partners.

''This,'' said Sergei Baranovsky, pointing to publicly available maps of once-secret weapons sites and military bases and piles of pamphlets and brochures, ''is nothing less than a revolution.'' Baranovsky heads the Russian chapter of the Green Cross, an international environmental group that runs the outreach offices in Shchuchye and the regional capital, Kurgan.

''Can you imagine anything like this being open 15 years ago?,'' he asked. ''We would have been put in jail. Now, we can talk about the problem like civilized people.''

The problem is that so far, chemical weapons disarmament in Russia has been mostly talk. Russia has made headlines with its recent ratification of nuclear arms reduction and test-ban treaties. Its chemical arsenal, no less deadly, is all but ignored, like some second-rate weapon of mass destruction.

By April 29, states that signed the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention are supposed to have eliminated 1 percent of their stockpiles. The United States has already destroyed 17 percent of its 32,000-ton arsenal, the world's second largest.

Russia, with 44,000 tons, will miss that deadline. Lieutenant General Valery Kopashin, head of Russian's chemical weapons elimination program, said Moscow remains committed to the treaty, but cannot cover the $6 billion cost alone.

The $888-million, US-Russian project to build an industrial-sized weapons destruction facility in Shchuchye would help. But the project has met with numerous delays, and this year the US Congress cut all funds for the program from the budget.

That decision has not gone down well in the Russian military. Colonel Andrei Kosarev is one of the Russian officers who have been trying to convince people in Shchuchye that destroying chemical weapons with American help is in their best interests.

''Many people see NATO expanding to the east, they see the war in Kosovo, and they think, we may need these weapons,'' Kosarev said. ''It took a long time for people to believe the Americans wanted to help us. So when the US cuts off funding, what am I supposed to tell people?''

The US Congress wants to see more evidence that the Russians intend to fulfill their side of the bargain, which includes modernizing Shchuchye's infrastructure. That is a daunting task. The town is heated mainly by aging coal furnaces. Fresh water and electricity are sporadic. New housing is badly needed to replace the town's dilapidated wood huts.

Kopashin says he is working on it, but only $1.8 million of Russia's $20.5 million budget for chemical weapons elimination is going to Shchuchye. The rest is probably earmarked for six other weapons stockpiles throughout Russia, though no one can say for sure. How any of the money gets spent is a state secret.
Townspeople in Shchuchye say they see no evidence of the new water and gas pipelines and 17 apartment buildings promised by the end of this year.

''There is no question the proof is in the pudding,'' said Thomas E. Kuenning, head of the US Cooperative Threat Reduction program that oversees joint disarmament projects, as he inspected the construction sites on the outskirts of Shchuchye.

Kuenning traveled to Shchuchye this month as part of an effort to get US funding for the project back on track. As a symbol of progress, he and Kopashin received a deed from the regional governor for the land where the weapons destruction facility will be built.

Kuenning also got a firsthand look at what it will take to convince the local population.

''The streets are under water; the lights go off twice a day. How can we talk about building a factory to destroy chemical weapons?,'' asked Yekaterina Ponomaryova, who was selling canned goods at the abandoned movie theater (still adorned with Lenin's motto ''Of all the arts, the most important for us is Cinema.'')

''If I had any money, I'd just leave,'' she said. Ponomaryova and other townspeople say they have heard that the military has begun burning phosgene, a choking agent that dates to World War I.

Kuenning's arrival stoked another favorite local rumor: that the United States is building Shchuchye so that it can destroy its own chemical weapons far from home.

These days, American and Russian officials can smile at that one. This is another job for the public outreach office.
The office, which occupies a room in the schoolhouse, is run by Galina Vepreva, a former teacher who has made herself an expert on chemical weapons and their destruction. She has been to the US facility in Tooele County, Utah. She has seen how each nearby house there is equipped with a radio that connects to an emergency center. She knows that in Shchuchye, most houses do not even have phones.

But Vepreva talks to people, and she has been sensing a change. If three years ago everyone was against building the facility, now she is asked whether there will be jobs there for local people.

Vepreva is also the one who handles the rumors.

She tells people the Russian plan to eliminate the weapons entails no burning. The two-stage process involves mixing the poisonous chemicals with a neutralizing agent that reduces toxicity well below lethal levels, then mixing the resulting liquid with asphalt to make solid ''bricks.''

The US and Russian governments are investigating whether the chemicals might leach from the asphalt bricks into rain or groundwater. So far, their studies have not found serious risks, though long-term investigations are still underway on whether the chemicals, if they escaped, could trigger cancer, genetic mutations, immune system effects, or birth defects.

One test involved feeding the mixture to rats.

''The rats love it,'' said Miguel Morales, a spokesman for the US Cooperative Threat Reduction program. ''They gained weight.''

Russian specialists are convinced the bricks pose no danger. One idea has been to use them to pave airport runways - except that the 30,000 tons expected to be produced by disarming the weapons at Shchuchye would provide only enough asphalt for half a mid-sized runway, said Valery Demichuk, deputy director of the research institute that developed most of these weapons.

The people of Shchuchye can be forgiven for not believing anything their government tells them. For years, people suspected that the stockpiles were here, but Soviet, and from 1991 until 1993, Russian, authorities denied it.
For years, the Soviets also denied three major accidents at the Mayak nuclear production facility in the neighboring Chelyabinsk region, which polluted the Techa River that runs through Shchuchye district with radionuclides.

''We found that it was worse here than in Chernobyl,'' said Lyudmila Ganeyeva, a regional legislator who helped uncover the Mayak disasters in the late 1980s. When people found out about the chemical weapons stockpiles in Shchuchye , Ganeyeva said, ''our first thought was `get it out of here.'''

But Russian law forbids the transport of chemical weapons; other regions do not want the stuff in their backyards, either.

''We needed some time to realize that there was nothing to do but destroy these weapons right where they are now,'' she said.

This story ran on page A01 of the Boston Globe on 4/24/2000.
© Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company.