RUSSIA GOES MODERN

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXX, Issue 276, 27 November 1935, Page 4

RUSSIA GOES MODERN

WAR MINISTER’S ORDERS

OFFICERS MUST LEARN TO JAZZ

MOSCOW, September 1

All officers in the Soviet Red Army have been ordered by the War Commissar, Voroshilov, to learn to dance modern jazz numbers.

This is the ouftieome of an embarrassing experience in the capital of Turkey, Ankara, where a visiting Red Army delegation was being entertained.

At a ball given in their honour it was found that only a few of the officers knew even the first thing about modern dancing, and in response to invitations from Turkish society women to dance they had to mutter excuses.

Now jazz music can be heard in many military barracks, where spurred and black-booted officers can he seen practising the fot-trot and rumba. Folk Dancing Forgotten Not only the Red Army is learning 'to dance, but tens of thousands of other Russians aro forsaking their old pleasant amd folk dances for modern jazz. Three years ago such a thing'was unheard of. The few daring people who occasionally went to hotel dances here, which were only a .concession for foreign visitors, sometimes found themselves in trouble when called upon by the secret police to give an account of themselves.

“Comrades,” they would ask, “(this looks suspicious to us. Why were you mingling with those foreign capitalists and engaging in the pernicious practice of their primitive dances?”

At that time a member of the ruling Communist party would rather have been dead (than caught doing a tango. But now all is changed. Russia has gonje modern. Jazz dancing is actually encouraged, and instructors are sent to teach it. English Clothes Wanted As with jazz, so with clothes. For men the old embroidered Russian blouse and the high black boots have almost died out. They all want to dress as Englishmen do, with low shoes, shirts with collars and lounge suits. Suits made of English material are greatly prized and can only be had in great shops where goods are sold for gold and foreign currency.

Women bob and curl their hair, get permanent waves and copy Paris styles as best they can with the materials at hand. In the big cities they also use lipstick, powder, rouge their cheeks, and enamel their fingeir nails blood red, light red and mother of pearl colon!.

Another thing that indicates the modernisation of Russia is the safety razor. Razors in general were very little known before the revolution and used even less. The beard was the thing. Now the beard has gone, and only a few old diehards and oldpeasants still sport it.