TRAVELLING “HARD” IN RUSSIA

Taranaki Daily News, 13 October 1934, Page 15 (Supplement)

TRAVELLING “HARD” IN RUSSIA

The Spirit Of Comradeship Prevails In Cramped Cars On The Soviet Railways

r J£ STATION gong announces the approach of the train but the waiting crowds—mothers with restless infants, peasants sagging under heavy sacks, workers loaded down with rope-bound suitcases—are alt ready crowding perilously close to the tracks. An impatient minute to permit those descending to struggle free, and then, sandwiching themselves in their baggage, a roll of bedding to the fore, bundles and food boxes behind, the passengers clumsily climb the narrow steps of the “hard” car. There is a Russian “soft,” corresponding to the European second class, but of the annual billion passengers in the Soviet Union no more than 15 per cent, foreigners, Communist party members, G.P.U. agents and Red Army officers—are privileged to travel in such ease. Everyone else rides “hard” (writes a correspondent in an exchange)'. Narrow wooden doors, a mock concession to privacy, mark off the “hard” car into three sections, each containing nine flat wooden benches, the backs of which can be raised into upper shelves. A third tier high 'overhead is designated for baggage, but invariably a good part of it is used for “extra” passengers. Trains are always crowded. The aisle inside, hardly wide enough for a single person to pass through with comfort, is quickly jammed as our passengers get on. The air is charged with noises—the banging of upper seats into place, the excited cries and scufflings of the passengers, a baby’s wail, the clatter of boots and the thud of baggage on the bare wooden floor —and with the heavy and oppressive odour of quarters too much lived in. . Not until our train has jogged slowly out of the station is anything remotely resembling order restored. The din has subsided into a steady murmur of voices that blends with the rattling of the train. Baggage shelves are piled up to the ceiling. Bedding has been unrolled. Each bench or upper shelf —about 2ft wide and less than six in length, serves as a cramping “sleeper” for a single person, or for a mother and child. The ease and rapidity with which the... pasengers make themselves at home surprises the foreigner. But this is Russia, where an entire nation has been infected by the restlessness of uprooting change, where people have learned to live on the move. Peasants driven out of the villages by the invasion of labour-saving workers travelling from one job to another, Red Army soldiers, vacationing proletarians, homeless waifs, entire families, Jews, Persians, Turks and Armenians—in no other country in the world could such varied types be crammed into common train.quarters. Despite the lack of conveniences,

Russians manage handily and smile at the foreigners discomfort. At the first ff.ir-sized station the passengers dash but with tea kettles, bottles, cups and glasses for hot water. Boiling hot water at every railroad station is one of the Russian’s inalienable rights. Once water is obtained, breakfast becomes possible. Food baskets are' uncovered and the inevitable loaves of sour black bread appear. Occasionally there will be in addition a little butter or cheese, more frequently hard-boiled eggs or smoked fish'.

Milk is warmed by mixing with steaming water. A pinch of tea leaves dropped into a kettle produces a weak, greyish brew. Lumps of sugar are found in the basket and are handled cautiously, like so many lumps of gold. At the longer stops newsboys come through the cars and at their heels are almost certain to be beggars, a little child asking for a few copeks, a bearded old man stumbling feebly with an outstretched

cap into which the passengers drop slices of bread. Throughout our trip not a single beggar leaves the train empty handed. A spirited sense of companionship prevails—something of the sort must have held true in the caravans of covered wagons that pushed across the American prairies. Naturally sociable and garrulous, the Russians mix freely, men and women, unhampered by reserves or conventions. They drink from the same cups and bottles, guard one another’s baggage. Life goes on in the hard car. It does not strike one as unusual to see, in a single corripartment a mother teaching a child to walk, her husband preparing the baby’s bed, a shock brigade worker teasing a woman, a four-year-old boy being taught the difference between the czarist custom of kissing one’s hand and the more democratic Communist handshake, a boisterous pair trying to kiss two serving girls from the “soft” diner, while two men look up from their game of cards to laugh uproariously. As evening falls a lazy languor creeps over the car. Most of the

travellers are lying on their benches dreamily watching the sunset or the lengthening shadows. Four or five may form a group around ahd sing husky reverberating songs until the conductor reproaches them for making so much noise when children are being put to sleep. The presence of a stranger is something of an event. The passengers bubble over with questions. How is the crisis getting along in other countries? Is it true that America has so much bread and coffee that some of it is being destroyed? (This is asked incredulously, as if it were impossible for so much wheat to exist.) How are the workers in other countries? As well off as we? Is there much unemployment? Is there going to be a revolution? No matter how the conversation starts, it is bound to wind up on the subject of prices. Usually a discussion of prices is but a prelude to the oft-repeated lament, “Life is not easy.” A factory worker old enough to remember, pre-revolutionary days compares shoe prices. Before the war the best pair of shoes in Russia cost only six or seven roubles. Now the price is 200 roubles: ' if one has an order the shoes can be bought for 50 roubles. Another worker in Baku is quite content with his salary of 600 roubles a month. Two and three years ago, he admits, things were very bad. There was no bread or food. But now it was much better. Baku was such a rich city, with rations practically as good as those in Moscow. All along the way are signs of construction. Hardly a village hasn’t a half-finished red brick building on its outskirts. Piles of bricks, logs and timber are heaped along the railway tracks and the freight cars that pass are laden mainly with lumber, coal, steel rails and oil. A six-year-old boy turning the pages of a book and coming upon pictures of Lenin and Stalin pronounces the names softly, almost caressingly. State and collective farms are pointed out to the stranger with a sense of pride and ownership. The sight of tractors and machines invariably excites “Look!” “Who owns the country in America?” a young girl and boy still in their 20’s belligerently demand. “This is our country. We have no unemployment. We work only seven hours a day, while you work 12. Does your worker get paid if he is sick? Here we have no one above us. This is a worker’s government and we have work for all.” Youth hopes, but their elders remember. Tales of woe outnumber the optimistic dreams, perhaps because the train is passing through the Ukraine and Causasus, two regions where the struggle for collectivisation was most bitter. Yet the hard car reflects Russian life—far more accurately than the statistical results of the Five-Year Plan. Life is unquestionably hard, even for a people that never had much. Uprooted peasants and workers wandering about in search of an “easier life” still represents the bulk of those travelling hard —and this has probably been the “easiest” year since 1927.