IN RUSSIA

Stratford Evening Post, Volume IV, Issue 224, 2 September 1936, Page 3

IN RUSSIA

A WOMAN’S VIEW. CLOTHES EXPENSIVE. Visit Paid To Factory Creche. HYGIENIC CONDITIONS. Sydney, August 30. Food at prohibitive prices .... . clothes expensive and hideous . . excellent welfare and amusement facilities . . . everybody, even old women, working hard . . am). everybody apparently" happy. These are some impressions of Soviet Russia gained by Mrs Ivan Maxwell, of Melbourne, who, with her husband and children, returned by the Nellore to day. A facility for observation, unusual iu tourists, belongs to Mrs Maxwell and she appears to have missed little in her visits to Warsaw, Leningrad, Moscow and Kiev.

‘As British travellers, we were

treated with the greatest courtesy,”

she said. “There was ony one phase of life we were not allowed to see. That was the flat-dwelling. I believe housing conditions are fearfully crowded.”

“As we had bought our comprehensive tickets in London our meals i wore comparatively cheap, but a din- | ner for which we paid 4s would have 1 cost about 2s Gel in the ordinary way. Latter is 8s to 10s a lb.” Care of Babies. A creche, conducted in connection j with a huge factory' at Kiev, impressed Mrs Maxwell very much. As soon as-the working mothers leave hospital, their babies are placed in the creche, which is situated so that the mothers may come to feed them atl regular intervals. There, in ideally hygienic conditions, with beautiful toys, even an equarium for their amusement, the children remain until' two years of ago, .spending thsi sixth day (the Soviet week-end) with their parents. “The workers leceive good money,” said Mrs Maxwell, “but prices are so high that it is soon spent. The women are most unattractively dressed, and .since the shops are, of course, conducted by the Government, there) is no attempt at effective display'. There are no luxuries —no jewellers’ shops, for instance, only watch shops, j “Still, they all appeared happy, am} j I never saw a beggar or an under-! nourished child.

“Ten or twelve per cent, of wages is taken for house rent, and accommodation is worked out at so many! cubic feet of air per parson. Just* how long this standard of equality) will be satisfactory remains to b© seen. There are signs of competition creeping in. For instance, at the ballet seats are given free to the hardest workers.

“The ballet, of course, was excellent, and crowded with poorly dressed people. “The Russian film we saAv was not so good—poorly produced and propaganda from beginning to end.” Old peasant women worked at light jobs, said Mrs Maxwell. They were; to be seen moving the points for trams, picking up papers in the! streets, and as museum attendants. On the sixth day, when work ceased, everybody went to amusement parks. Laden with food, they appeared thoroughly happy.