FLOCKING FROM PETROGRAD

Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 62, 13 March 1918, Page 5

FLOCKING FROM PETROGRAD

CAPITAL A GLOOMY DESERT THE ABANDONED FLEET fft fTELEQBAPH.—UNITED PBE^B ABBO6lATit)H.—faOP^iOßlT.j (AtfsißAi<iAN-i?i!W Zealand cable AssociATfdN.J (Received[March 3.3, "8,30 d.m.j LONDON, 11th March. It is officially announced thai the evacuation of Petrograd is being hurriedly Continued. All metal stocks are being removed. LONDON, 12th March. The Daily Chronicle's correspondent at Petrograd says that the Ministries have nearly all gone to Moscow. .-.'., The population is flocking from the capital, and there arc queues of thousands waiting for permits to leave. Overcrbwded trains' are departing all. day ' long. Other people are using sledges, add many are irudging through the snoV. Everything is quiet in. the city, which Is becoming .a' desert. The trains afe running with difficulty, owing to the coal shortage, factories are. closing, and the cdbs disappearing. Most of the cab-owners have sold their horses for meat. Underfed horses are dying in the streets daily ; the 'theatres are mostly empty, and motors and lorries have been commandeered for the evacuation. There is Ji6 panic, no excitement; a widespread gloom has taken their place. Meanwhile, Petrograd knows little of the outside world, arid even Russian news is hard to get. .'.. , . .'(FtraitiSHED IN* THE THISS.I {Received March. 13, 8.30 a.m.) . PETROG'RAD, 12th March, The Soviet ha» received a tragic md significant descriptiori of thief abandoned fleet at Helsingfors. The crews melted away, only a watch oh each'ship being left. The dreadnoughts are going to Kronstadt, and the dthers have been left to the care of Finland, and are practically in German hands, the i Aurora arid Diana' have' been dismantled. The sailors looted all the movable article*. • fThe Aurora is A iecorid?elass crtii&er, of 6fei tons. Th 6 Diana is also a second-class ctnis'er, of GGffl tons, and was used as a submarine depot. The Aurora is fifteen years old and the Djia'na sixteen years.]