EUROPE TO-DAY

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 12332, 22 April 1938, Page 2

EUROPE TO-DAY

CHANGING MOSCOW

For good or ill the destinies of millions arc now being shaped in Moscow—and perhaps the fate of nations. too. A famous traveller whe has known the city for half a century writes of it in this way:

The foreigner who visits Moscow to-day will find things outwardly much the same as fifty years ago, but he will also find astonishing changes. The lofty tenement houses, recently built, have introduced into the actual scenery an element of discord emphasising the sharp antagonism between past and present. In spite of these dwellings housing difficulties are felt more keenly in Moscow than anywhere in Europe. Many are obliged to content themselves with a room or a bed occupied by turns. Corridors, garrets, cellars, and other odd corners are used as sleeping places, though the Soviet Government has from the first taken the matter to heart and done everything possible to put an end to the horrors of overcrowding, building more and more of these spacious high buildings divided into tiny flats. The people in the streets differ vastly in garb and gait from those of pre-revolutionary day's. They are dressed according to their means, no one seeming to care what his neighbour wears. Clothes are worn as covering for the body, nothing more. The glory of the shops has entirely vanished, and those carried on hy the authorities are only open during certain hours on certain days. Such is Moscow as it remains in the mind of a traveller who was there the other day and has known it all his lifer such is this marvellous city where a group of amazing for good or evil, are fast changing the face of the world and the destinies of millions of the human race.