SOVIET GIRLS

Hokitika Guardian, 30 December 1921, Page 4

SOVIET GIRLS

(By Recent Visitor to Russia). To talk of Soviet Girls is to talk of the Russian girl in general, because at least three-fourths of the women of Russia are at present employed in the Humorous offices ol tile Soviet Government. You meet an ox-maid of honour to the late Empress working side by side with a former milliner’s assistant, or a highly ciilluiod middle-aged woman with at least six languages at her command calling the little messenger with shawl-covered head tovarish (eomtadel and meekly taking orders from some young Commii.ui.st girl of the very humblest extraction. They one and all help to living mo[(i and more muddle and confusion into the intricate, bureaucratic Bolshevik Government. Whatever difference of opinion there may be as to their efficiency, the verdict on their personal opinion is tiuanijmbus— nenjly all ol them are beautiful. I would not lie alraid to say that the Moscow women are without a doubt the most beautiful in the world. It is a perfectly natural beauty—the beauty—the beauty of expression of line carriage and free movement (dw? probably to the absence of corsets) n beauty that triumphs over a total lack of the most elementary accessories. For the past tillin' years no clothes could be bought, neither wen; there fashion papers. During the time the Russian girl has been living as best she eimld. sans shoes sans hats, sans hair-pins, powder-puff's lip-salve, and the liundred-and-one little tilings which the Western damsel considers essential to her appearance. Anti yet the Soviet Girl, in spite of all those difficulties, manages somehow to keep up a semblance of style and fashion.

||ow she does it is .. mystery and certainly speaks well for her ingenuity and resourcefulness.

I admired one partHilnrly becoming frock which to me seemed very much, what my women friends at home fall a coat-frock.

“That.” mv companion informed me “is an old tnpdstry curtain belted in with its own cord and tassel.” “Rut the hat; surely that never began life on tlic furniture?” She examined it with the eye ofi an expert. “The cardboard foundation is appropriated from the office where she works, and the covering is an embroidered dowel. In the old days.” she explained with a sigh, “our tcwels were more handsomely worked than our frocks.” Tho Russian girl, aristocratic or Communist, is iii'ii 'chronic stale of being in love ; she feels that her life is being wasted if she finds herself, for a tune, v i'll,nit a lover.

! ove is as necessary to her as ihe air she breathes. The conversation during office hours is all of love and love: J ; the chief, ill fact the only, happiness in ill- ir lives is to love and I e love.!. They are so simple, so childlike, so line,implex ill their ! re. and yet their devotion and sclf-serrilicc are unlimited. Wh 'ii the lover fails or desorts'hcr it is sad indeed.

I venture 1 to say that. there have I von more cases of suicide f'roin disappointed love than from all llie Ininaer anil inivatlon of the past three years.—Knolish Vapor.