EUROPE : Now Vendors, Not the KGB, Trap Tourists : Harassment of visitors leads Moscow to ban souvenir sellers from the Arbat pedestrian mall.

Back in the bad old days, foreign visitors to the Soviet Union had big worries: What to do when followed by the KGB? But in today’s free, democratic Russia, there’s a new source of harassment for the innocent tourist: roving bands of souvenir sellers.

After the Moscow government late last month barred vendors from selling on the Arbat--the quaint pedestrian mall visited by thousands of tourists every day--hundreds of displaced merchants have fanned out around the city in search of customers.

Frequenting Moscow’s most popular tourist attractions, sellers now work out of plastic bags and well-stocked briefcases, trying to unload nesting matrioshka dolls, Soviet army surplus and sparkling yellow amber necklaces on anyone who looks vulnerable to the pitch.

“If you look like a tourist, they’ll come up to you and approach you with everything,” said Julie Bassett, a Los Angeles native vacationing in Moscow. “You can still barter as well. They’ll take the shirt off your back if you let them.”

Angela Stevens, of Pomona, Calif., said she was hounded at Moscow’s majestic Novodevichy Monastery, at the scenic overlook in the hills near Moscow State University, on Red Square and even inside the famous GUM department store.

“They’re still out there, all right,” she said. “I saw people selling souvenirs everywhere. They’re really aggressive.”

The Arbat was a capitalist miracle, one of the first places where Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev allowed a semblance of supply and demand and free speech to exist. Visitors and Russians alike flocked to the street, one of the oldest in Moscow.

Several hundred people worked the Arbat daily, selling in the open air, even in bitter cold, from small tables along its half-mile length. Most vendors were Russians in their 20s, attracted by the ability to earn hundreds of dollars a week for relatively easy work. There also were leather-faced grandmothers, selling hand-crocheted tablecloths and other handicrafts to supplement their inadequate pensions.

But the market brought with it a criminal element. Racketeers from Moscow gangs made a good living by extorting protection money from peddlers.

Moscow authorities now decline to comment on why they ordered the Arbat closed to vendors. But in an interview with Moscow’s English-language daily, the Moscow Times, one official said the government was responding to residents’ complaints.

“We cannot turn one of Moscow’s main streets into a bazaar,” said Vitaly Uzov, deputy head of Moscow’s prefecture. “The place was anarchy. The area’s residents couldn’t cope with the criminal situation. They couldn’t go out on the street in the evening.”

Further, officials see the Arbat’s potential to be more than just a tourist trap. The city hopes that by kicking out low-class street vendors, the Arbat will be gentrified and that high-profile foreign shops will move in. The Italian clothing firm Benetton already has opened a boutique; McDonald’s plans to open there this summer.

Of course, like Soviet attempts to squash the black market, the Arbat effort has not succeeded entirely. Vendors still work the street--surreptitiously. They approach tourists and lead them into alleys or vestibules to deal.

Other sellers balance their wares on the first-floor window sills of Arbat buildings. They work with lookouts, and at the first hint of police, the vendors shuffle their goods out of sight. Artists have drawings displayed on huge easels, so they can simply close the cover when the cry sounds that authorities are near.

“Of course I’m going to stay here and keep selling. I have to eat,” said Nikolai Fyodorov, 30, an unemployed painter hawking his watercolors. “We’ll just pay a bribe to the police, if we get caught.”

Not everyone is angry about the ban. Tourists still visit the street, but now they can stroll at leisure, instead of having to weave through hundreds of souvenir-laden tables. And there are still street musicians and portrait artists.

“It’s so much better this way,” observed Marina Garmuzova, a clerk in an Arbat food store. “As long as the tourists have somewhere else to buy their presents, I’m all for this.”