DISTRESSED PETROGRAD.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1985, 3 June 1919, Page 1

DISTRESSED PETROGRAD.

■WITHOUT FUEL OR' WATER. SOARING FOOD PRICES. Owing to the absence of fuel in Petrograd all the water-pipes are frozen, and the population is suffering greatly, through lack of water, wrote a correspondent from Helsingfors on March 24th.

Women and children arc reduced to getting water from the Neva, or from the canals, which are foul, and in consequence there has been a spread of disease, and especially an epidemic of typhus. The central heating in houses is out of repair, and people who remain at home arc obliged to cover themselves with furs and blankets.

The price of tea has risen to 380 roubles a kilo (£3B for 211 b.). Food is cooked in small stoves, fuel being obtained from fruniture, books, debris of all kinds, and even paper and hanging stripped from the walls. The price of petrol has risen rapidly to 30 roubles a kilo, while the monthly allowance for each person amounts to only 400 grammes (140 z.). The use of electric light is restricted, and for having exceeded the stipulated allowance 570 lodging-house proprietors were brought before the revolutionary tribunal.

For over a year the peasants have been concealing from Bolshevist requisition large quantities of grain.

In (he districts of Jarensk and Veliki Using, in the Government of Vologda, secret distillation of alcohol is taking place. A curious order was issued by the Commandant of the Glh Army, General Kousmin, in which four cents each was offered for broken bottles, and decreeing that any person found drunk would be shown no mercy, but immediately shot without trial.’

In Petrograd all the paper shops are closed, but the Soviet is establishing new shops, where goods can be bought with special permission.

The .Nevsky locomotive works, one of the largest factories in .Russia, are now exclusively employed in the repairing of locomotives. During February, owing to the shortage of fuel and poor discipline among the workers, only six locomotives were repaired, after which a system of payment by piecework was adopted with the addition of a premium. The premiums consist of an increase of .100 grammes per locomotive to the men’s daily ration, hut the latter are discontented and wish to leave the works. The same conditions prevail in other works in Petrograd. Masses of workmen are spreading over the country. Owing to the cessation of passenger train services, and in spite of the hard winter, they are returning home on foot. At the moment there are not more than 60,000 workmen left in Petrograd.