PRIVILEGE : House That Boris Built Imperils Populist Image : Yeltsin’s penthouse with marble stairs clashes with ‘just folks’ pretense. It’s a public relations time bomb.

Call it The House That Boris Built.

Not far from the Russian capital’s covered cycling track, construction workers and soldiers are toiling in the mud of April to erect a vast, opulent residence for the leader of Russia--one that clashes with his past professions of humble simplicity.

Four toilets, two bidets, two giant bathrooms, three exquisite crystal chandeliers to light a sprawling living room and staircases hewn from rare marble are only the beginning of the luxuries, workers say.

When complete, the penthouse suite will boast floor space equal to two tennis courts.

Surrounded by an iron fence to keep prying Muscovites at a distance, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin’s future apartment in western Moscow occupies half of the sixth, uppermost floor of the massive, red-and-yellow-brick building.

An underground garage-cum bomb shelter, whose roof doubles as a helicopter pad, is being outfitted. A tennis court will allow Yeltsin to squeeze in some practice sets while at home. There will be a naturally fed pool.

For a man who built his populist appeal on attacking the privileges of the Communist high and mighty, the hush-hush project on Autumn Street is a delicious irony. It is also a public relations time bomb, a fact Yeltsin seems to have realized only belatedly.

After all, its future tenant once turned down a suburban “cottage”--it was more like a palace--that former Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev offered him. Yeltsin scorned it, saying that it was obscenely luxurious.

Now, two companies of the Kremlin guard are being trucked in to help build Russia’s president a residence worthier of his high office.

At a time of severe government budget deficits and when more than a third of the nation’s population is struggling to live on 8,500 rubles monthly, site managers estimate 100 million rubles are being lavished on the project each and every month.

Along with the presidential suite, 22 other apartments averaging 1,600 square feet apiece are being built. For whom is not clear. But speculation ranges from Yeltsin’s bodyguards--who supposedly will get the entire ground floor--to cronies like Defense Minister Pavel S. Grachev.

The Autumn Street building is so swank that some Russian journalists have been told by authorities not to write a single word about it until after the national referendum this Sunday.

Pravda, one of Yeltsin’s sworn enemies, didn’t feel bound by such recommendations, and one morning scornfully splashed across its front page an expose about the splendid digs being built for the supposed “fighters against privileges.”

However, though charges about corruption have been part of the pre-referendum campaign, Yeltsin’s opponents seem reluctant to mention the project, doubtless because many have used political clout themselves to trade up to better accommodations.

Yeltsin’s archfoe, Ruslan I. Khasbulatov, may even have outdone the president--the Parliament chairman commandeered a downtown flat that even former Soviet President Leonid I. Brezhnev found too outrageously splendid. It is supposed to include a private elevator, pool and greenhouse to supply Khasbulatov with fresh fruit and vegetables even in the heart of winter.

In Yeltsin’s entourage, officials unconvincingly put the blame for the whole Autumn Street project on Russia’s equivalent of the Secret Service.

“Personally the president doesn’t want to live there,” asserts Alexander B. Arfyonov of Yeltsin’s press service. “But his security department insists that he move. The reason is that they can’t guarantee Yeltsin’s security on a top-notch level in the house he lives in now.”

Why? Because, Arfyonov claims, neighboring apartments in the Moscow building are occupied by many former Communist Party apparatchiks, including Gennady Zyuganov, a firebrand who is the leader of Russia’s reborn Communist Party.

That may be. But it is common knowledge that Yeltsin usually spends his nights in a dacha on the city outskirts. To convince Russians that their president is still “just folks,” a television documentary this week showed a three-room flat in central Moscow that Yeltsin’s wife, Naina, misleadingly labeled “our home.”

So what will happen to the new penthouse, which is supposed to be ready by May Day?

Yeltsin seems to have concluded that with Russia’s economy and politics in an uproar, he’ll have to pass up the crystal chandeliers and bidets for a time.

“I am sure of one thing: Boris Nikolayevich is not moving there in the near future,” Arfyonov said. “Let the country breathe easier, and then Yeltsin may make up his mind to move to a better apartment.”