SVETLANA'S WORRIED PALS GIVE OUT FLYERS

New York Daily News; New York, N.Y.; Mar 9, 2003;

EDWARD BARRERA and MAKI BECKER DAILY NEWS WRITERS;

Friends and loved ones of an upper East Side woman who vanished Monday while walking a family dog near her apartment fanned out across Manhattan yesterday, distributing flyers in a desperate bid to find her.

"The worst thing is not knowing, and all the fears that that brings," said Patricia Engel, 26, a Manhattan writer who was among the volunteers who gave out flyers. "But you have to have hope."

Svetlana Aronov, 44, a rare books dealer, is believed to have vanished about 2:30 p.m. She left her apartment on York Ave. between 63rd and 64th Sts. with her father's cocker spaniel.

A police bloodhound tracked her scent from the apartment building to E. 68th St. Yesterday, the Daily News revealed that an attendant at a parking garage between E. 68th and E. 69th Sts. told detectives he saw a woman matching Aronov's description with a cocker spaniel get into a yellow taxi around the time of her disappearance.

Because she failed to leave a house key for her 9-year-old daughter and also left her father waiting at Kennedy Airport, Aronov's family believes she was kidnapped.

Friends of the Aronovs gathered in Central Park at 11 a.m. to pass out the stacks of flyers.

"I called Polina [Aronov's 22-year-old daughter] to see what I could do to help," said Ludmila Kudinova, a friend of the missing woman who was among the group of about 25 volunteers.

[Illustration]
Caption: Svetlana Aronov