POSTCARD / ST. PETERSBURG : What This Country Needs Is Good Five-Cent Ticket

Before the Goodwill Games, organizers announced that the following would receive free admission to the events: Olympic athletes, schoolchildren, military veterans, retirees, physically impaired, workers who contributed to the construction and reconstruction of the venues, anyone whose last name ends in a v , y or a vowel.

Still, on the night that Carl Lewis ran in the 100 meters, Sergei Bubka pole vaulted and Jackie Joyner-Kersee began the heptathlon, so many of Petrovsky Stadium’s 28,000 seats were empty that the gates were opened to allow anyone who happened to be passing by to enter without a ticket.

By the end of the night’s program, even the optimists could not say with a straight face that the stadium was half full, and that so far has been the largest crowd for a sporting event during the Goodwill Games’ first week. At some venues, there have been almost as many athletes as fans.

It is not that Russians do not like sports. They like them very much, although many sports fans here, like many sports fans in the United States, do not have much curiosity about team handball, judo, water polo or even, apparently, track and field and amateur boxing. They prefer soccer and ice hockey, neither of which is a Goodwill Games medal sport.

But even those who do enjoy the so-called minor sports, or have a curiosity about them, had difficulty before the Games finding tickets, which did not go on sale until two days before the opening ceremony.

“Here, there’s no Ticketron, no TicketMaster, no record-keeping, no credit cards over the phone,” said Goodwill Games President Jack Kelly of Atlanta.

Kelly said he tried to persuade the organizers to establish a system for advance sales, but they wanted to do it their way.

“Hey, it’s Russia,” he said, resignedly. “It’s their country, not mine.”

He also got nowhere when he talked to them about limiting live telecasts in St. Petersburg. During the fortnight, 140 hours of events are being televised here on three channels. There is no word in Russian for blackout .

The largest obstacle to selling tickets, however, is their cost. Although reduced by two-thirds since they went on sale, the price of the best seats is still $13.50. Considering the average monthly salary of Russians living here is about $100, that is steep. There are cheaper seats, all the way down to $2.40. But even that, some residents complain, is more than they can afford.

In an excruciatingly painful transition period for the economy, many Russians are suffering. Seemingly oblivious to that, more than a few Americans here for the Goodwill Games are making sport of haggling with taxi drivers and street merchants over a dollar or two.

We have the money and we flaunt it. If they want some of it, they have to grovel. By the time the Goodwill Games end next weekend, I wouldn’t blame them if they don’t like us very much.