CONDITIONS IN RUSSIA

Taranaki Daily News, 17 October 1931, Page 7

CONDITIONS IN RUSSIA

AUSTRALIAN’S EXPERIENCE ■ VISIT TO ISOLATED NORTH STORY OF SLAVERY DENIED WORK IN TIMBER CAMPS By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. London, Oct. 15. Interviewed by the Australian Press Association on his return from an interesting journey to the remote Kara Sea region .in Northern Russia, which the Czarist regime closed to foreigners, Mr. George Matters, the Australian journalist, declares that the allegations concerning slavery, brutality and starvation in timber camps there is nonsense. He lived among Russian timber workers in the town of Igarka, built three years ago, and shared a hut with aviators, river pilots and queued up with others for food, which was the normal procedure, not because there was a shortage but because there were no waitresses and everyone helped himself. “I lined up with the police chief ahead and a charwoman behind,” said Mr. Matters. “All got the same good and plentiful food as myself. Everybody in the town from the highest to the lowest was treated equally in regard to food. Rusia is an overlarge country for anyone to sum up in sweeping terms, but in the important area I covered I saw no such thing as slavery. Everybody, especially the rising generation, is well fed and contented. “Igarka is probably the most extraordinary town in the world. Three years ago bears and wolves roamed the district. The town is built on a two-feet layer of moss under which in the summer time when one walks the streets one hears water squelching. I waa allowed to do as I liked. An interpreter, who was my personal friend, assisted me in the area I visited. The people were prosperous and hard-working but utterly cut off from the world. I did not know that an election was on till I was going home and got within wireless range of Norway. Apart from ships’ crews I am probably the ( first Englishman who ever visited the Kara Sea area.”