RUSSIA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2719, 25 April 1906, Page 13

RUSSIA.

(From Oub Own Co-respondent.) ST. PETERSBURG, February 9. I should not advise any New Zealander who is thinking of coming here via the Trans-Siberian railway to come just yet, — especially if he is travelling for his health and would like to reach his destination in less than a rear. In the first place, the dirt in v the first class carriages is so thick that even the Russian soldiers notice it! Writing to the papers, the officers declare that it (the dirt) is xevaabbazdit (unimaginable), adding that this is not to be wondered at, since the earriag-es ' are not even cleaned once a week. One of these- officers writes in the Slovo that all the silk stuff on the cushions is gone, ' that all the looking-glasses are broken, ' that all the mattresses for the beds are ; mislaid or lost. The carriages look as if they had been recently under heavy fire, and it will cost Russia millions of loubles to again make this line fit to carry people who are accustomed when travelling to ! have better accommodation than cattle. | Oddly •enough, the only things spared in I these carriages are the old leaflets which . I set forth the manifold advantages of the j line, and which 6peak of Dalny and Port j Arthur as Russian ports. No wonder that , the Russian authorities never allow any | foreigner to travel by this railway now. I The contrast between what it is and what ' it was meant to be is too glaring', i The buffets at every station along the line, says the officer from whom I have already quoted, are closed, and the doors and windows are boarded up. To get any f food is impossible. Formerly, when a supply of provisions reached a buffet the I first business of the hordes of hungry soldiers ■« as to incidentally smash that buffet to pieces, — in the course of their struggle for the food. There are thousands | of thebe soldiers to be .seen at every station and the solitary lieutenant of the , Reserve who is supposed (erroneously, how- j ever) to have charge of each crowd fears his men as he would fear fire. Everybody on the trains and at the station* is chunk, and the question arises, i Where do these men get the money to ' keep themselves in this uninterrupted and beastly state of intoxication? The answer to this qu-estion is supplied Iby the railway platforms. The platform [ at each station looks like a bazaar, for i it is littered with all sorts of curios and j goods carried off from China, and sold here i for a song — rolls of Chinese silk going for two or three roubles, packets of Chinese I tea selling at three or four roubles, and so on. Every kopeck got by the sale of i this loot is spent in drink, and it is not ' exactly safe for an officer to meet with [ any of these armed bands of brutalised human beings, among whom bloody fights frequently take place. M-eamvhile the Council of Imperial Defence is preparing, with a prudence that seems somehow to be too far-sighted, to protect the Trans-Siberian line, not against the Russian Reservist, who seems at present to be its most dangerous enemy, but against foreign foes. Stone storehouses will be built at many different points for the use of the permanent garrison, and special machine-gun companies will be trained for the defence of the line.