BEGGARS BY CHOICE

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22467, 30 July 1938, Page 19

BEGGARS BY CHOICE

MANY former Russian noblemen, financiers, mill-owners, and landed proprietors, 20 years after they were expropriated by the Russian revolution, are now begging in the streets of the country’s largest cities, according to information reaching Moscow, states the Moscow correspondent of the “Observer” (London), Undying antagonism toward the Soviet regime and unwillingness to participate in the development of Socialist Russia were alleged to be the major reasons for their obstinate refusal to accept work offered to them by the authorities. Another reason was revealed the other day in Baku, the Russian Caspian Sea oil centre, when police arrested Rza Javad Zeinzalov, a former oil magnate, and found thousands of roubles in his living quarters.' Zeinzalov admitted that he preferred begging to work because his income from begging was several times better than that of even a well-paid Soviet official. Many similar cases have recently come to light in various large cities in Russia. Antonov, a former Ukranian landowner, begged in the streets of Kiev, Kharkov, and Odessa playing on the sympathies of passers-by with such success that he was able to enjoy a yearly vacation at Russia’s best resorts in the Crimea and Caucasus. The authorities are attempting to discourage begging both by giving wide publicity to such cases and by making every effort to induce ablebodied beggars to accept employment in industry.

Living on Charity In Russia

Another important Government measure to eliminate begging is the granting of old age pensions, which, however, in justice to the almsseekers, are frequently so low that many have to go back to their old trade. Taking advantage of the chronic shortage of certain goods, numerous former wealthy merchants have turned “beggar-traders.” Under the guise of woebegone charity seekers, they have taken to illegal peddling of goods in the city markets and village bazaars. Two hundred and seventeen such speculators were arrested in one week in Moscow alone. Under'dry crusts of bread in their beggars’ bags the police discovered quantities of shoes, goloshes, and various textiles—goods they had bought in Government stores and intended to resell in neighbouring villages at speculative prices. Some of these men were able to obtain large quantities of merchandise with the aid of false documents indicating that the bearer was a collective farmer sent to Moscow to buy goods for his organisation. A former millowner, Vovchenko, was arrested in Kiev for the wholesale forging of such documents. He had been doing a thriving business, Vovchenko revealed to the police, confessing that since the beginning of this year he had sold more than 250 documents. The Soviet authorities fully realise that the profits from speculation attract not only the expropriated classes in Russia, but will continue to draw numbers of ordinary Soviet citizens so long as there is a shortage of print frocks and hair ribbons, to say nothing of boots and bicycles. In spite of the considerable yearly increases in the production of consumption goods, the demand still far exceeds the supply.