Frenzied optimism and a fair degree of vagueness surround the latest plans for St. Petersburg’s 300-year Jubilee celebrations this May.

While Jubilee events will be held throughout 2003, the big party – when world leaders, officials and tourists will descend on the city en masse – will kick off on May 27 and run through to June 1.

Why the confusion? The celebration program has not been finalized yet, whether or not there will be restrictions on visitor numbers still has not been disclosed, and whether or not the city government agrees that people should actually be encouraged to come is not entirely clear either.

The celebrations should be open to everyone, according to St. Petersburg Gov. Vladimir Yakovlev, who spoke recently about the Jubilee plans at a general meeting of the St. Petersburg International Business Association (SPIBA).

"You should encourage all your friends and family to come to St. Petersburg for this historic event," he said. "Maybe it won’t be possible for you to visit the Hermitage or get tickets to the best theaters in town, but there will be many gala events that will be accessible to everyone."

Yakovlev said that he was tired of media outlets criticizing the organization of the celebrations. "They’re all saying that everything associated with the Jubilee will be lousy," he said. "Well, our visitors may just be pleasantly surprised when they see how much reconstruction work and development has been done in time for the celebrations."

Yakovlev said that while tourists may have difficulty finding accommodation in downtown St. Petersburg, he felt sure that there would be spaces at hotels and resorts on the outskirts and outside the city.

St. Petersburg’s top hotels have already allocated the majority of their rooms to official guests during the last few days of May. President Hotels, a federal agency in Moscow, will allocate reservations for these spaces.

There are still some vacancies, though. At the budget end of the inner-city accommodation spectrum, the St. Petersburg Youth Hostel will have beds available in May and June, and several home-stay agencies said they could still find rooms for that period.

Alexander Prokhorenko, the chairman of the City’s External Relations Committee, who also spoke at the SPIBA event, did not seem quite so optimistic about St. Petersburg’s ability to deal with the influx of visitors.

"We’re not trying to close the city to tourists, like the media is saying. But it will be necessary to regulate tourist flows during the Jubilee," he said. "Exactly how this will be done will be released later."

There has been talk about putting restrictions on the number of tourist visas that can be issued from May 22 to early June, but, to date, the city’s travel agents have still been providing invitations as normal.

A representative from the Ost-West travel agency told The Russia Journal that "I really can’t guarantee that you’ll be able to get a visa for St. Petersburg anywhere around this period," she said. "The fact is, we just don’t know yet. We haven’t been told."

Prokhorenko said record crowds would make security, traffic and crowd control in the center very difficult. He said inner-city commuters could have problems getting to work and that several days of the celebrations may be declared public holidays for that reason.

"Of course, those people who have the day off might then just come to the events and make them even more crowded," he added. "It may be better if inner-city residents just go to their dachas for the big celebration days and just watch it all on television."

The airways above St. Petersburg are also going to be hectic, with all the official comings and goings. On May 30-31, Pulkovo will be operating 24 hours a day, and there will be a flight landing every 10 minutes, according to Prokhorenko. He said that, for these two days, Pulkovo would handle official-visitor flights only; other air traffic would have to go through Moscow or Helsinki.

Whether Pulkovo will definitely be closed to commercial air-traffic for those two days has not been decided yet. Airlines have scheduled flights on those days as per normal, and, if the airport is closed, airline losses will be substantial.

Several foreign officials in St. Petersburg have expressed concern that the celebration’s program is too vague for them to properly organize official delegations in advance.

Natalya Batozhok, the chairwoman of the Committee for the Preparation and Celebration of the 300th Anniversary, said that the program was being finalized day by day and that, as new drafts of the program are developed, they will be publicized.

However, according to a spokesperson from the International Press Center in St. Petersburg, which was set up to publicize events associated with the celebrations, the government had not set a date for the meeting to decide on the final program.

When one foreign consul complained to Batozhok that the Jubilee Web site was unclear, she said there were 20 Web sites, so she did not know which one he was talking about. The two main sites are 300online.ru and spb300.com.

The big day, though, will be May 27, the day the city was founded, when, back in 1703, Peter the Great laid the cornerstone of the Peter and Paul Fortress. According to the current plans, a cannon shot fired from the fortress will begin the day’s festivities, which will include boat races and regattas along the Neva and out on the Gulf of Finland. There will be concerts and military music parades down Nevsky Prosp., followed by fireworks in the evening.

If you’re prepared to fight the crowds, May 27 is the day to go to the Hermitage. It will be free and open 24 hours. According to the City Government’s Web site, there will be also be free admittance to the Russian Museum, the Artillery Museum and the Peter and Paul Fortress on May 30, although this information hasn’t been confirmed by the museums themselves.

The mysterious and much-talked-about "International Water Event" will be held on May 31 on the Neva River. Yakovlev said that the whole city should come to see this display, for which Korean giant Samsung Electronics has just pledged $400,000 in funding.

One member of the Jubilee organizing committee said, "With a bit of luck, St. Petersburg’s celebrations in May won’t be an Atlanta Olympics experience. In true Russian tradition, I’m sure everything will come together, even if it is at the very last minute."