ICE-CREAM TRAGEDY

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 532, 8 December 1928, Page 13

ICE-CREAM TRAGEDY

BORED RUSSIAN MINERS - COMMUNISTS POINT MORAL Four young miners on holiday in the town of Rutchenkovka, in the Donetz Basin, Russia, were at a loss how to spend their time. One of them, the young Communist Rozhkov, hit on the idea of holding an ice-cream eating contest, with the provision that the winner should think out a programme of amusement. Half-an-hour was the time-limit, and Rozhkov succeeded in swallowing 20 plates of ice-cream in the time. He started to make out a programme, but soon felt ill, and died during the evening of pneumonia. His experience was described in the organ of the Union of Communist youth, “Komsomolskaya Pravda,” with a moral. It was emphasised that boredom had led up to the fatal episode, notwithstanding the fact that Rutchenkovka possesses one of the 16 imposing "palaces of labour” which have been se. ap all ov r the Donetz Basin at a cost of twenty million roubles. Externally these buildings possess all the requirements of workers’ recreation centres: libraries, bar-ber-shops, restaurants, clubrooms, and auditoriums for theatrical performances. But the organisation of the recreation work is so indifferent, it appears, that the facilities of the buildings are insufficiently used.