For Moscow's businesswomen, a powerful new role

Perhaps no other Russian businesswoman has been more upwardly mobile than Vogue magazine editor Alyona Doletskaya.

A decade ago her career path was unthinkable - her job didn't even exist. Ms. Doletskaya's trek to the top of Russia's burgeoning fashion world started in the musty corridors of Soviet academia and landed her in plush penthouse offices overlooking the Kremlin.

Her transformation from professor of linguistics to glitterati testifies to the dizzying new opportunities for women in Russia, which is seeing an unprecedented wave of newly successful female entrepreneurs and professionals. It's evident at Moscow's expensive sushi bars where women in designer suits cluster for lunch. It can be seen in the first-class cabins on international flights, in fitness clubs, and even in the offices' of cosmetic surgeons.

As Russia marks International Women's Day Tuesday, the official holiday that's a bit like Valentine's Day and Mother's Day rolled into one, some women say there is finally something to celebrate.

"Things are changing drastically," says Ms. Doletskaya, editor in chief of the Rus- sian edition of Vogue. "Younger women these days do not hang back or defer to men. They are investing themselves in careers and some are even arriving at the upper heights of management."

In the turbulent 1990s, many women adapted to market rules faster than men. Hundreds of thousands of them became "shuttle traders," bringing consumer goods in bulk from abroad to sell in local markets. Though shuttle trading has been superseded by organized commerce in recent years, women remain strong in the retail sector.

"Women understood they had to survive," says one expert. "While men lay about on the sofa, or took to drinking, women mobilized to support their families."

More than 40 percent of small businesses in Russia today are run by women, says Tatiana Chertoritskaya, chair of the Women's Social-Democratic Congress, a coalition of mainly professional women that lobbies for equal rights. "The numbers of women in management positions in business are growing, while numbers of men are stagnating," she says. "But our research shows women's salaries remain lower; on average women earn 63 percent of what men earn."

While women are making strides in business, politics is another story.

The former Soviet system reserved a third of seats in its parliament for women, but the quotas were abolished when Communism collapsed, and female representation in the State Duma has fallen steadily, to around 7 percent today.

"There are no women in government," says Ms. Chertoritskaya. "We have a few women celebrities, who dominate TV talks shows, but there is still no real women's movement in Russia. That must grow from below, not be imposed from above."

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