City Girl Found One Bargain In Moscow

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29896, 9 August 1962, Page 2

City Girl Found One Bargain In Moscow

She was in Moscow and had £5 to spare. But the strange problem facing Miss Eloise Marshall, a Christchurch teacher, was: how to spend it? Browsing through the only big department store, made up of a series of arcades, she found nothing worth taking away. Who, from the West, would want long-legged cotton interlock bloomers at 17s 6d a pair, poor quality nylon stockings at 26s a pair, or ordinary men’s handkerchiefs at 5s each?

Time and patience were rewarded, however. when she found the record counter. Here she made her only “good buys” in firstclass. long-playing records at 8s to 12s each.

•'I chose Russian folk songs on long players and a small disc 'at 6s) of the Soviet Army Choir, and there were beautiful recordings available of the best symphony orchestras for up to 12s. ’ Miss Marshall said yesterday.

After spending about 30s on souvenirs she did not particularly like. Miss Marshall went to the circus, then to a puppet show, where admission tickets l6s each—and excellent value in entertainment.

The well-dressed dancers who visited Christchurch las’ week from the Bolshoi Bailee did not fit into Miss Marshall's picture of how Russian women were clothed Women in Moscow wore drab colours, old-fashioned styles, and poor quality fabrics by western standards she said. Most wore cheap headscarves; very few wore hats Ballerinas were a cherished group in Russia and. presumably. were able to buy more exclusive garments, she said Perhaps they went shopping during their tour of Austra••I did see one good-qual-ity coat in Moscow for £3O. but it had been imported." she added Private Deals As an indication of the shortage of certain types of garments in Moscow. Miss Marshall said many young men approached her tourist party wanting to buy socks, shirts, sweaters and women's blouses in orlon. nylon or wool.

"One man in our party sold a wool sweater, which had been darned in each elbow for £4 He pointed out the mends before he took the money." she said

The cost of clothing, poor as it was seemed very high to Miss Marshall in relation to the average wage of £8 to £lO a week for the Russian worker Even teachers and doctors were included in this wage group and many of them were very discontented, she was told in Moscow

Doctbrs were required to work only six hours a day. in the main but most of them worked overtime to bring

their wages up to a higher living standard. Technicians were much higher paid than doctors, she said On her tour, organised by a travel agency, Miss Marshall and more than 30 others went through East Germany and Poland, as well as Russia. Berlin Wall ‘‘You don’t realise what a bad psychological effect the wall through Berlin has till you see it from the Eastern sector.” she said. "Our tourist guide, who had to stay behind in East Berlin when we went on, was almost in tears as she said goodbye to us. She had a mother in West Berlin, we were told."

The tourists themselves heaved a sigh of relief and burst into cheers as their bus passed through the wall into West Berlin. Miss Marshall said.

The Polish people seemed to be much more cheerful than the Russians or East Germans, from what Miss Marshall saw of them. |“I think the Poles have come to terms with communism now and settled down to it," she said. "Their food production is adequate for the needs of the population—the only one of the Communist countries that is self-sup-porting in food. In Poland only 4 per cent, of the farms are collective; former estates of Polish nobility now make up another 14 per cent, of the farms, and these are State-owned.” Miss Marshall said she believed the Poles had more freedom than the people of the two other Iron Curtain countries she saw. There was also more beauty in their country's landscape. Shock Of WarsawBut Warsaw was a shock Here was a picture of the real devastation of war Whole blocks in some streets were still flat from bombing. Streets had been rebuilt wider and lined with trees, but the new buildings were a mere sham of their former beauty. They had been reconstructed in inferior materials and stuccoed over to give the effect of the old stone buildings replaced. Paintings on the walls of the buildings represented historic stone carvings and the result looked like a Hollywood set. “We all had the feeling that none of the ordinary people of Russia, Poland or East Germany wanted another war. They had suffered too much from the last one,” she said. Miss Marshall, who was on the staff of Christchurch Girls’ High School before she went overseas, has not returned to her home to stay. In two weeks she will be married and will make her future home in Sydney.