Word of Loved Ones in Russia Arrives : Reaction in O.C.: Computer messages bring comfort to a Russian painter and his wife in Laguna Beach.

By KRISTINA LINDGREN and KEVIN JOHNSON

Aug. 21, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

LAGUNA BEACH — Watching momentous events unfold in the Soviet Union over American television, Russian painter Nickolai Bogomolov felt helpless. The tension grew greater when he and his wife, Natasha, were unable to get calls through to relatives in Leningrad.

Relief came just before dawn Tuesday in a message on the computer screen of his Laguna Beach friend and sponsor, Darrylle Stafford: “Grandfather brings Svetta home,” said the note about Bogomolov’s 10-year-old daughter, who was in the troubled Baltic state of Estonia when the coup in Moscow occurred early Monday. “Says it’ll be OK,” added the message from their Leningrad friend, Valentin Yemelin.

“We are still very nervous, but it was a great relief just to know something,” Natasha Bogomolov, 34, said Tuesday at the Laguna Beach Sawdust Festival, where her 35-year-old husband is a special guest exhibitor.

At a time when international telephone lines to the Soviet Union are virtually unobtainable, such computer links are proving a vital window on events transpiring thousands of miles away.

Stafford’s so-called “Electronic Mail” connects him via Macintosh computer to Yemelin in Leningrad and another associate in Moscow for their shared business, discussing arranging tours of Americans to the U.S.S.R. and of Soviet citizens to the United States. The usual communication is of departure and arrival times, addresses where people will stay and discussion of upcoming tours.

Since early Monday, however, Stafford’s home computer has brimmed with news and commentary.

“Tanks are moving to (the Baltic states). Resistance grows,” read the first word’s of Yemelin’s 5:33 a.m. message Tuesday. “Big plants (industries) support Yeltsin. . . . Customs regulations banned.”

An hour later, the message was grim:

“First blood: Two killed, one foreign reporter. The first line has been broken with automatic gun fire. Electricity is cut. (Anatoly A.) Sobchak (mayor of Leningrad) has called for resistance and defending of majority. The Pskov division is in Siverskaya where our house is. The Engineer Corp High School where my father work is occupied by special forces. Barricades on St. Isaac Square. We worry that Alyona will not be able to leave. . . .”

The messages prove that people throughout the Soviet Union are better informed about events since the coup than is generally believed, Stafford said.

Yemelin’s first message, sent about 3:30 p.m. Leningrad time on Tuesday, also referred to a mass meeting in the main square of Leningrad.

“Just returned from the meeting. Very organized. No incidents. People support (Leningrad’s mayor) and Yeltsin and are quite optimistic. We regard the coup as not serious. We all noted (coup leader Gennady I.) Yanayev’s trembling hands on TV. Yeltsin proclaimed the junta outlaws. Prime Minister Pavlov has cut the food and goods supply for the Baltics.”

Thinking of such news, Nickolai Bogomolov trembles, clutches his hands together and tries to express himself in English. “This is a great sorrow. . . . For us it is difficult to know what to do. We have decided to wait a little (before returning to Leningrad). Maybe we will wait for the situation to clear a little.”

In Placentia, it was a telex message that assured Ken Feldman of his father’s safety and that of a group on a four-city tour of the Soviet Union this week.

The message from Robert S. Feldman, president of a local tour company and director of Russian and East European area studies at Cal State Fullerton, was sent from Leningrad and reported, “Everything quiet here.”

Feldman’s group had arrived in Leningrad on Saturday, and was scheduled to stop in Yalta and Kiev before departing the Soviet Union from Moscow next Friday.

Despite the maelstrom of events occurring elsewhere in the Soviet Union, the elder Feldman was upbeat and predicted quieter political times ahead. He also instructed his 24-year-old son to begin preparations for his next Soviet tour, which is scheduled to leave the United States on Sept. 7.

“I’m concerned, but I’m not frightened,” Ken Feldman said after hearing from his father. “The only thing I’m worried about is some kind of freak accident.”

Not so for many who are related to members of Robert Feldman’s tour group.

“With the instability of the entire country, the best thing she could do is to get to Helsinki (Finland, for a flight home),” said Brad Singer about his mother, Ernestine Singer from Brea. “I don’t think we’ll see normalcy for quite some time. It’s hard to take in the sights when tanks are in the middle of the square.”

Singer was traveling with her friend, Mary Harrison of Anaheim, and another 10 people from the tour. About half are from Orange County, Feldman said.

Ken Feldman wasn’t too worried about his father, who has been leading tour groups to the Soviet Union under the banner of the Placentia-based East-West International Tours Inc. for more than a decade with few difficulties.

Still, if his father is able to call him, the younger Feldman wants to be able to advise relatives of tour members whether they will abandon the trip and come home early. But he plans to advise his father to stay.

“Being a professor of Russian studies, this is a big deal for him,” Feldman said. “He’s at it, man.”