RUSSIA TO-DAY

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 October 1930, Page 4

RUSSIA TO-DAY

SYDNEY WOMAN’S LETTER. In a letter to a Sydney friend, Mrs Bethune Bryce, a Sydney resident, who is on a world tour, supplies interesting information regarding the conditions in Russia.

After describing the difficulties experienced in obtaining a Russian visa for her husband and herself—the process taking 11. days at Teheran —Mrs Bryce stated tha: she received her first taste of Communism at Julfa. At the hotel they were taken to a room containing four beds, one of which was already occupied by a soldier. “Our train left at daylight, and we were in very good time, as we sat up all night,” she adds. At Leninakan, where there were formerly 20,000 Armenian children in oeo orphanage, a textile factor}* had been commenced by the Government, absorbing 4000 orpahans, while the Armenian Relief Society had cultivated about 2000 acres of land to absorb the remainder. Titles were abolished, children calling their teachers comrade, servants calling their mistresses comrade, waiters cajing guests comrade, aond the manager of the hotel rade, and she stayed, a Jew*, was most friendly and called her comrade all the time.

Describing her arrival at Moscow, Mrs Bryco writes:—“A week previI ously we had telegraphed to the main I hotel for a room and to be met by the ’tourist bureau. No one’met us, so Iwe went to the hotel. There was no room. We went to the tourist office. They had done nothing about our telegram. Having a reservation made is not Communism. A lady (not by her appearance) standing by said in German, 'Could I help you? I could give you a room, and you will be where you can speak to people.’ We accepted in the spirit. /‘Our fears vanished when we met her lius* and, a courteous ‘ Russian gentleman. They, with one daughter, pay rent for a room and a bathroom in their own home. About ten other families live there. Our room was tho bathroom. Fortunately their ideas of bathrooms were larger than ours, and I had a real bed. A board covering the bath and a mattress on this fixed up the second bed.” “Living is very costly in Moscow,” she continues. “These are some prices in the restaurants —there are only three in that city of 2,000,000 poop]© we would call ‘possible.’ One portion of steak costs 8/-, chops 5/-, omelette 5/-, cauliflower 5/, soup 2/-, one cup of coffee 1/, tea /6, portion of butter /9, and small cakes /6 each. Household prices include, eggs /6 each, bread /6 loaf, butter 8/. lb, fowls 14/- each, veal lb. Each household may have veal once in 10 days. Each person is allowed three metres of cloth in a year; so if you want sheets you cannot have j a dress. A cheap voile blouse costs 52/, and poor cotton gloves 22/- a pair, Leather boots cannot be ob tained, and hats—well, the women do not bother.”

“GODLESS SOCIETY.” Confining, Mrs Bryce says that the weatlh of art in Moscow is incredible. “Moscow is said to have 40 times 40 churches and they are all beautiful,” she writes. “In many cases the belle have been taken away, the crosses wrenched from the tops. Many of them are now museums, and a guide goes round ridiculing Bible stories and also the Christ. Derisive pictures of Christ (hand-sketched) are to be seen at all the entrances. Officially the people have religious liberty, but they obtain permits to go to church, and they are afraid to go too often. On Whitsunday we were in Leningrad, and attended a service there. -The singing was beautiful, but at times one could scarcely hear. Outside hundreds of tho Godless Society were singing ribald songs. Even if one endorsed tho theory of Communism, t. government must be revolting that encourages such vulgarity. To read their papers, theirs is the only stable country in the world. Australia was a week ago, according to a Leningrad paper, in a terrible state. The masses were rising; the Government was raising millions for war preparations. Millions in India were rising.

“On the way out of Moscow a family of two boys and a mother helped nt. 'with the tickets. The elder boy was 2G. The father has been a prisoner for some years, his only offence being that he was a lay reader in the church (Protestant). The boy is eaching in a village school, and asked o bo allowed to attend the Univer sity. He was asked two questions‘Do you belong to the Party?’ and ‘Do you belong to the Godless Society?’ As he belonged to neither, he was sent back to his little village, and every obstacle placed against his rising. We visited a professor in Leningrad who has one son, 19 years old* who is a genius. He speaks French, German, and English and knows more about Shakespeare than I do. His father wants him to be an engineer. Russia gets all her engineers from America or Germany. The professor has- asked- permission for the boy to go to a German University to train, but they will not allow anyone to leave the country. “We spoke to many pepole, in trains (behind closed doors), in parks, and in quiet places, and we never met one who believe din Communism.” Mrs Bryce adds that she met many people in Russia who had been imprisoned without a trial, and one woman who had been wrongly fined an amount that took her three years to pay. The Judge in that case was one of the Party, that being her only qualification for the judgeship. Formerly she was a charwoman. Queues of people waited all night for milk, biead, cigarettes, and railway tickets. Cities had miles and miles of boarded shops, as if a plague had come over them. A doctor could not practise privately, patients having to go to clinics or hospitals, and many died as a result. There was little respect shown to funerals. ;