REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK : Yeltsin Still Dresses Like Communist

Despite a readiness to break with the manners as well as the policies of the Soviet era, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin was in full conformance with the Communist commissars’ old preference for dark suits rather than formal evening wear at the G-7 black-tie dinner Tuesday night.

Where the other leaders, from President Bush to Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, wore tuxedos to the lavish state dinner at the Antiquarium, the richly frescoed, candle-lit ballroom at the old royal Residenz in central Munich, Yeltsin wore a new, double-breasted, dark gray suit--and a brown tie.

“A tux? I don’t think he owns one--none of us do,” a Russian diplomat said, reading an instruction to members of the Russian delegation to wear “dark business suits or, if women, short dresses.” He added, “In fact, I don’t think you can buy a tux in Moscow.”

St. Petersburg Mayor Anatoly A. Sobchak has worn a custom-made tuxedo to several dinners in his city recently, however, and Russia’s nouveaux riches are beginning increasingly to escape the old Soviet drabness by dressing up.

“We used to think they were the uniforms of fat capitalists,” the Russian diplomat said of tuxedos. “I guess that was another stereotype.”

On the summit agenda was the issue of Yugoslav participation in the Summer Olympics. Serbia, which dominates what is left of the Yugoslav federation, claims to be entitled to wave the banner of Yugoslavia. But the international community blames Serbia for the continuing Balkans war.

The G-7 leaders, responding to a request for guidance from Olympic officials, proposed that Yugoslav athletes be allowed to compete as individuals, in white uniforms without any national markings.

With scores of issues crowding their way onto the Group of Seven agenda, one issue was conspicuously absent: the environment.

Billed by both German and Bush Administration officials in pre-summit briefings as central to the forthcoming deliberations, it has been completely neglected by the G-7 leaders.

“The simple fact is that this summit can only concentrate on so many subjects,” explained Dieter Vogel, spokesman for the conference’s host, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

A tradition has developed at G-7 summits that the host country provides a “welcome package” for each journalist covering the event.

As the summits have grown, so have the packages.

Initially, they tended to be modest--perhaps a small plastic briefcase or shoulder bag containing a few brochures about the host nation’s best tourist attractions, note paper and maybe a couple of pens.

Those who covered last year’s summit in London found a box of Scottish shortbread cookies, a bag of English toffee, a scarf and a summit necktie in their gift bag.

This year, the German Federal Press Office has taken this gesture to new heights, stuffing two bottles of German wine, a wristwatch bearing the logo of a German airline, a hardcover souvenir book, a beer stein, a compact disc, a vest-pocket guide to Munich, a German-English dictionary and a computer game called “Off to Europe” into its package.

Created by Guenther Koenig of the German Foreign Ministry, the computer game extols European unity by challenging up to six players to work their way through Europe by answering questions (in any of five languages) about the 12 European Community states.

The game begins by checking the computer for viruses to the strains of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”

Times staff writers Tyler Marshall, Doyle McManus, Michael Parks and James Risen contributed to this report.