AN ICE CREAM TRAGEDY

Evening Star, Issue 20033, 26 November 1928, Page 6

AN ICE CREAM TRAGEDY

BOREOGfd AMID “PALACES 0F LABOUR"

Four young minora on holiday in thd town of Kutohonkovka, in tho Donets Basin, Russia, were at a loss recently how to spend their time. One of them, the young Communist Rozhkov, hit on the idea of holding an ice-oream-eaiing contest, with the provision that the winner should think out a programme of amusement. Half an hour was the time limit, and Rozhkov succeeded in swallowing twenty plates of ice cream in the time. He started to make out a programme, but soon felt ill, and died during the evening of pneumonia. His experience was described in the organ of the Union of Communist Youth, ‘ Komsomolskaya Pravda,’ with a, moral. It was emphasised that boredom had _ led up to the fatal episode, notwithstanding the fact that Eutchenkovka possesses one of the sixteen imposing “palaces of labour which have been set up all over the Denote Basin at a. cost of 20,000,000 roubles. Externally these buildings possess all the requirements of workers’ recreation centres—-libraries, barber shops, restaurants, clubrooms, and auditoriums for theatrical performances. But the organisation of the recreation work* is so _ indifferent, it appears, that tho facilities of the buildings are insufficiently used.