RUSSIA OF TO-DAY

Southland Times, Issue 19345, 10 September 1924, Page 5

RUSSIA OF TO-DAY

JOURNALIST’S IMPRESSIONS A NATION CONTROLLED BY A FEW LIFE IN MOSCOW. (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) LONDON, September 8. (Received September 9, 7.25 p.m.) The Daily Chronicle has commenced publishing a series of despatches from its Russian -special correspondent, who spent months mixing with all classes. The correspondent tells how a handful of determined men hold 140,000,000 people in fear and subjection. He says: “ Russia is ‘the Tibet of Europe,’ all the Russians are strangely sensitive. ‘We are net civilised’ they keep saying. The worst period was in 1920 and the following year, when complete stoppage was threatened. There was no regular water supply, hardly any sanitation, and the free ration of the State consisted of worm-eaten herrings and portions of bread doled out. However, things are much better now, though Moscow is still the most expensive place in the world for the foreigner. Hot baths cost 7/-. The hotels are fairly clean and comfortable, but are run very inefficiently, as the managers are Communists chosen for party loyalty.

“Everybody wart* to live in Moscow; few remain in the provinces, except from sheer necessity. There were 2,500,000 in Moscow before the war, but the population has since increased enormously, so that the overcrowding is appalling. Five or more people are frequently herded in one room. Shop windows are full of brightly coloured caricatures of religious things. They are revolting to a religious man, but the artistic quality is not lacking in these blasphemous productions. “The State is all powerful everywhere. Moscow resembles London during the war. All the hotels and big blocks of buildings have been taken by the Government departments. It is a city of bureaucrats.”