A CITY’S DEATH

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 6438, 15 January 1924, Page 5

A CITY’S DEATH

PETROGRAD IN THE SHADOWS

Professor Charles Sarolea has been to; Russia, and, writing in the Scotsman, describes “the death of Petrograd—one of the world’s most wonderful cities.” A removal cf the capital to Moscow meant a sentence of death against Petrograd, for Petrograd was an entirely artificial city,” he says. “Without any advantages, built on a marshy swamp*' periodically devastated by floods, she only owed her existence to the fiat of Peter the Great. She could only survive as a city of luxury and pleasure,” as a centre of the court and of society of ” the bureaucracy, and of the army. Other European cities, like Trieste, Riga, and Vienna, after the war, have seen the currents of commercial life diverted from them. But their prosperous days are sure to return. “On the contrary, Petrograd, once she has lost her political importance as capital of an empire can never recover it. She can neither be revived nor transformed. She can never adapt herself to the new conditions. In, the near future tourists wilL.yi.eiy the ruins of Petrograd as our forefathers would contemplate the ruins of mediaeval Rome. After six years of Soviet rult Petrograd is already a dying town. And the death of Petrograd is. the death of one of the world’s most wonderful cities, for Petrograd was built bn an even more colossal scale than Moscow. Even more than Moscow she is a city of palaces and granite embankments, of spacious parks and' treasures of art. “Whereas the population of Moscow has vastly increased, the population'of Petrograd is little over one-third of what it was before the war. .Except for the main avenues, the streets are deserted, the grass' is ! growing between the cobble stones, tramways , are. running' half empty, . a-nd most of the shops and restaurants are closed. The harbour is lying still. A drive through the town is a melancholy experience. The stately mansions of the aristocracy, are tumbling down, either because, being built on piles like the houses of Venice ; or Amsterdam, the foundations are collapsing, or 'because" the , basement has been flooded, or because the roofs have been torn down and the woodwork of the window frames removed for fuel. The parks ai*e turned into wilderness. .The. villas and ‘Datchas,’ which were onqe. the scenes of a gay life, are but a heap of ruins. The factories in the suburbs of the town have shared the fate of the palaces in the centre.”