MOSCOW COMEDY

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19374, 24 December 1932, Page 7

MOSCOW COMEDY

AMBASSADOR IN FOOD QUEUE. The “privileged rations" sold to the 4000 foreign engineers and technicians working in the Moscow neighbourhood have been further cut down to 101 b of meat and 61b of fish monthly, their, wives getting half that ration. On the day when this cut came into force, the curtain rose on a new act in the comedy, entitled “Feed the Foreigner,’’ when a cosy little provision shop, strictly reserved for the Diplomatic Corps and foreign correspondents reopened for business on “foreign money only” terms. Soviet currency is not accepted.

The gold price charged for food some of it of atrocious quality—is often three times higher than prices ruling in the border States—Finland, Latvia, Esthonia and Poland.

Many members of the Diplomatic Corps have decided to boycott the shop, and to make arrangements to import supplies from the Border States.

In the meanwhile, the most piquant feature of the whole comedy is to see sumptuous ambassadorial saloon cars, with national flags on the radiators, queuing up amid the Oriental squalor of the Free Market. The Turkish Ambassador paid a personal visit to the shop on the day of its reopening.

Embassies and Legations are contemplating further cuts in their staffs. Consuls point out that they charge all consular fees here in paper roubles, which are now practically worthless to them, while the Soviet Consulates charge gold rates, and usually insist on you paying your “out” visa in foreign currency, also before starting for Russia.