PRESENT DAY PETROGRAD.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16448, 3 June 1919, Page 5

PRESENT DAY PETROGRAD.

DRAMAS OF THE STREETS. A lady in Tsarskoe Selo has written the following impression of presentday Petrograd. It is taken rrom a Russian newspaper at Helsingfors:;— Alas! Petrograd is no more, it is slowly dying. On Friday, February 14, as i wont across the city from station to station on a cart with xay things, 1 was horrified to see the emaciated faces of the inhabitants; they could scarcely drag their legs along, or they stood for hours waiting to get on a tram. The tram, it is true, costs a rouble a journey now; still, this is not 60 roubles, the price of a cab, and so tbo unhappy inhabitant patiently waits in order to scramble on board somehow. But woe to those whose work finishes late! The trams run only until six o’clock in the evening, and not at all on Sundays. One day, as I was walking along tho Zagovodsky Prospekt, I saw a young lady standing with her eyes closed, pressed against the wall, holding fast to a watorpipe. I ran to her and discovered that slio had been at work since 8 o’clock in the morning in another part of tho town, had' had nothing to eat, had' missed the last tram, and was so weak that she could walk no farther; hut sho still had a long distance to go. How many such dramas are happening every day, everywhere, in the streets and tho houses 1 Happening to walk along the Nevsky Prospekt, I was horrified at the sight of an old woman (sho proved to bo the widow of » Russian general), who was mechanically holding out her hands and repeatin', “Give me a piece of bread 1” You in..v think that I ought at once to have jumped up and given her something to eat, but, alas 1 that was out ol rho question. Nothing can be bought anywhere, especially bv me, a visitor. Once the porter of a Public Kitchen took pity on me and lent mo his food-card, and m I. got into tho dining-room. For 31 roubles I was given a muddy broth of lentils for soup, and, as a second dish, salted herrings with beetroot. Opposite mo sat an emaciated man with a gaunt face, who literally watched every morsel I ate. When I pushed away the soup unfinished, ho asked me in perfect French to allow him to finish it. You will realise from this, of course, that I pushed across tho herrings and beetroot also. • It appears that a large number of people sit in the Public Kitchen in tho hope of finishing other people’s leavings. I must mention hero an anecdote about a queue. Tho foremost customer, standing at the head of a queue, could not find what ho wanted at several shops and the people behind, dazed with misery, mechanically moved along in a row alter him for fear of losing their turn. How docs the poor intelligentsia live in these days; What docs it do? The answer is simple—lt sells. When the late Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich was examined, ho was asked on what means ho w r as living. He replied. On tho proceeds of soiling valuables.’ And when he was given a form to fill in, he wrote down in the sflaco for his occupation “Vendor of antiquities.” You find the most select society at the markets. They are selling clothes, linen, all sorts of things; and then they rush off to buy something to cat. Often my children said to mo: Mamma, what shall be have to oat to-morrow f’ “Well, dears, I’ll sell this tablecloth in the market and buy something.” Such dialogues aro hoard everywhere. All ray furniture, carpets, mirrors—all have been bought by peasants who are fitting up their huts sumptuously. Once I wont to a village two miles away for a bottle of milk (it cost 10 roubles), and I found in the cowshed my beloved mahogany dressing-table, for which the new owners had not ‘been able to find room in their hut.