LIFE IN CRIMEA

Evening Star, Issue 18050, 18 August 1922, Page 6

LIFE IN CRIMEA

STARVING CHILDREN SHOT. AMERICAN’S VIVID STORY. Simply •because they clambered on to the wharf and gathered up grains of corn, which had fallen from (he sacks, two peasant children were shot there and then by Bolshevik police. One youngster died immediately, and the other was taken by American officers and tended' on board ship. A remarkable story of Russian horrors under Red rule was told on the arrival of the American steamer Eastern Moon to-day (says the Sydney ‘Sun’ of July 20) by the wireless operator, Mr R. J. Loving. The wireless operator on his previous voyage from the United States had been on the steamer Belvidc.re, one of the thirty vessels which hove grain for the American Near Last Relief Lund. “It was intended that the grain, which chiefly consisted of corn, should be used as seed,” said Mr Loving to-day; “but (here was little doubt that the bigger portion of it was consumed by the starving populace. “To" Theodosia, on the Crimean Peninsula, my steamer went, and what I saw there left me quite convinced that stories of men eating women and children in the .inland districts, where the famine was worse, were not exaggerated'. “It was not uncommon to pass throe •or more heaps of rags —really huddled man, women, or children, dying from starvation—during a walk the length of a block in Theodosia, a town supposed l to contain 6,000 people. “Every morning the unclaimed dead were collected, taken over a hill a mile from the city, and there buried in one hole. Even tire richest could not afford more than a box of deal wood’. “ It made me feel sick to see the white, bony faces at the Children’s Asylum. It the heads hadn’t moved I would have thought them skeletons. MURDERED FOR THEFT. “ Two little children were shot on the wharf, whither our grain was going for transportation inland. They were hungry, and simply because they clambered on to the wharf and gathered up grains of corn which had fallen from the sacks, the two peasant children were shot there and then by Bolshevik police. “ ] saw another man shot down in the main street by the Bolshevik police for a trivial offence. 'The Bolsheviks claimed that they had acted drastically merely to preserve la.w and order, and to impress the people. “ The Bolshevik Chief of Police came down to the ship. I have never aeon such a queer-looking customer. He looked more like a criminal than a. guardian of the law. Ho was minus teeth. In his bolt was a rusty pistol, and he boasted of two bullets. “I met. nobody other than the .soldiers and the police who was Boidhevlk at heart. ‘Even the walls have ears,’ they said, when they whispered the dread secret that really they had no time fox Bolshevism, It was small wonder. How the people met the heavy taxation demands I do not know.

“ Working people wore paid the equivalent of an American dollar a month, and a loaf of bread a day. On that many of them had to support families. The owner of even a piano was taxed. He had annually to renew his license to have a piano.

850,000 ROUBLES FOR A DOLLAR. '■ It was hard for an American on shore to move for the crowds. Hordes of men, women, and children waited near the docks for men going up tho town, eager to beg cither money or food, I will never forget how some feasted on corn placed in an old tin can, mid softened by steam from the winches.

“ For a while we were millionaires, a dollar having its equivalent in 850,000 roubles. Yet. we lound our immense wealth of little value. The only things we could buv in shops were broad in small quantities, and a mystery mixture in a ddn — it could hardly be termed sausage—in still smaller quantities. “ There were,; however, some enterprising officers who purchased jewellery. Of course, they ran a risk that it would be no good, but 1 know of an officer who bought diamond earrings for ISOdol in the Crimea, and sold them for 350d01 on his return to Now York. These earrings were dug up from a backyard for lus inspection.”

Mr Loving concluded with a romance. A young mate from another ship met a girl in a cabaret in the Crimea who was about to be shot forfihcltering-lhor brother, a former officer in the army of the Tsar. The young American fell in lovo with the distressed maiden, and in the dead of night he took her on board his ship and slowed her away. Subsequently they were married at Constantinople. hire is now a patriotic American.