THE RUSSIAN TERROR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17336, 6 December 1919, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE RUSSIAN TERROR.

"STARVATION EVERYWHERE." ENGLISH WOMAN'S ADVENTURES. f A vivid picture of conditions in South Russia is given by an English governess, Miss A. Philips, who recently returned to London. "No one in England can have' the faintest conception of what Russia is like to-day," said Miss Philips. "Starvation is everywhere. People who have their pockets full of paper money have the utmost difficulty in getting the barest necessaries. "When I left Kharkoff people had often to wait in queues for bread from early morning till evening. ,v The city had no electric light or trams, and the water was only turned on for two hours a day. "Fever was raging people were dying like flies. But there was a famine even ] of coffins, and the bodies of poor people were being lumped together in common graves. "A coffin in Kharkoff cost 700 roubles— compared with the normal 15. (Nominally a rouble is worth 2s Id.) I "You could not buy soap, glycerine, or medicines. A pair of boots cost 2500 roubles. "Horses were dropping down in the streets from sheer exhaustion. For a year they had been living on straw." Miss Philips obtained a permit to leave through the good offices of the Dutch Consul, who saw Rakovsky, the police commissioner. She went to Odessa with a party of 26 refugees, who were crowded into a luggage wagon, and were 18 days getting- from Kharkoff to Kieff. "We bad paid 180 roubles each for fares and for having our passports signed at Kharkoff," said Miss Philips, "but at Kieff we were forced to pay another 159 roubles for the fare to Odessa and the signing of passports again, though the price on the ticket was 6 roubles 50. "We had armed guards on the train from Kieff to Odessa to prevent people rushing the train at the stations. The guards kept the crowds back by firing into the air. "Some of the people we saw at wayside stations had been waiting there a week. They wanted to get to Odessa to obtain salt. They were willing to part with a pood of flour for a pound of salt. 'It cost me 3500 roubles for food alone between Kharkoff and Odessa in nineteen days. " Miss Philips had a long interview at Odessa with the famous Bolshevist propagandist, Angelica Balavanoff, one of the most extraordinary women in Russia. With a short and skimpy figure Balavanoff has Jewish features and beady, penetrating eyes which seem to look straight through yon. I She has travelled in nearly every conn- i tr? of Europe, and speaks six languages fluently; her English is excellent. She intends to visit England again, according to Miss Philips, and is not the kind of woman likely to be thwarted easily in that design. As an instance of the way the Bolshevists treat rich Russians, Miss Philips says that the Countess Tolstoy (who is no connection of the famous author) was put in prison for refusing to pay a contribution when Bolshevists made a levy at YaltaShe declared on the word of a Tolstoy she had not the .means. This was untrue. The aged countess was searched, and one of her stockings was found stuffed with notes. Her house searched, and the Bolshevists took from her £900 in English money and 100,000 Russian roubles. They then put her in prison with the dirtiest woman felon they had. There was not a chair or bed in the room, but the countess's friends were allowed to send her a bed and also dinner every day.