RUSSIAN REFUGEES

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160731, 18 August 1920, Page 9

RUSSIAN REFUGEES

SETTLE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. AN IMPROVIDENT COLONY. (By Sir Philip Gibbs.) Among ail the varied nationalities and races which crowd this fantastic city of Constantinople and its neighbouring islands, I find the Russians most attractive as a human study. One’s pity goes out to' them, for they are in a desperate plight as the victims of an empire in upheaval—the aristocrats and bourgeoisie of an old order, which has been destroyed in violence—and now, after perilous escapes and the squalid misery of a long retreat, they have found sanctuary in this international port, with what little they could save cut of the wreckage of their old life. Before Denikin's army melted away, and, with a recognition of absolute defeat, lie took refuge on a British ship lying out here in the Golden Horn, Constantinople and the islands of the Sea of Marmora had already been invaded by Russian people in flight before the Red advances. They had escaped from Odessa and the Black Sea towns. Some of them had a long history of other escapes from Petrograd and Moscow and a hundred cities in the north, since the beginning of the revolution. LAST OP THE REFUGEES. Now, a few months ago the Russian colony of Constantinople was joined by the last of the refugees—Denikin's disbanded officers, with their wives ami children, landowners who had lived on tho edge of tho Red tide until its waves threatened to engulf them, professors, university students, dancing girls, singers, admirals without a fleet, princesses who had served under tho Red Cross, women of adventure who had followed the troops, and political agents of tho counter-revolution which was washed out in blood and tears. I meet all these people now in the Grand Rue de Peru, in the hotel where I am stay ing, in little restaurants where I like to' dine because of the strange company at the tables, and in cabarets where some of them sing for a livelihood. Alany of them still live luxuriously. and with a strange fatalistic gaiety) not counting the cost of glancing at the black shadows ahead. THE FALLEN ROUBLE. They have no money of their own worth anything in the world’s markets. The Russian rouble, of which there are many varieties in the paper—the Romanoff rouble, the Don rouble, the Deni kin rouble—is changed into Turkish money at a hideous discount. Whereas in the old days a rouble was worth about 4s 2d, it now requires 2009 roubles to buy a Turkish pound, which is equal to 4s in our money at the present rate of exchange. That is to say, the Russian pays 2000 times what lie used to do for everything ho buys in Turkey. Tho cost of living in Coustantinpole is the highest in Europe, or, I fancy, in the whole world. A cup of chocolate and a little cake costs a Turkish pound. To a Russian paying in his own money it costs 2000 roubles. At the. Pera Palace Hotel the simplest dinner costa three Turkish pounds. To a Russian with Denikin money it costs 6000 roubles. The rent of a house hired by a group of Russians in a back street of Constantinople is seven million roubles, which before tho war would have, built a palace. Such an exchange is so frightful that Russians who have nothing hut their own money have no means of life, however rich. LINING ON FAMILY JEWELS. Some of them have other tilings, and live in luxury while they last. They escaped the revolution with their family jewels sewn in their clothes, or, foreseeing the end, bought diamonds with all the money they had. The women brought away their furs, silk dresses, lace petticoats, and tho rings on their fingers- It is with these goods that they get the means of life and a little fun. In this hotel where I am staying a Don Cossack gave a banquet to four friends. They drank champagne. There was laughter at the feast. At the end of the meal the Cossack officer called for his bill, and after a glance, took off his wife’s fur tippet, handed it to the waiter, and said, “I pay with that.” It was valued by an expert on the pre-mitos, and the Cossack received 50 piastres (or 2s Id) change. A rope of pearls worn at the Court of the Romanoffs finds its way into the wooden shops of Greek merchants in Constantinople pearl by pearl. There arc quiet transactions done in the shady corners of restaurants and coffee-houses, where Russian officers put their hands in their pouches and take out some shining stone and say, “How much?” to some Levantine gentleman with sharp eves under a red fez.

' The thought of the day when there will be no other little stone in the pouch does not seem to worry them.