DEATH TO A WONDERFUL CITY.

Otaki Mail, 7 January 1924, Page 3

DEATH TO A WONDERFUL CITY.

PETROGRAD IN TUB SHADOWS. Professor Charles Saroloa has been to Russia, and, writing in the "Scotsman," describes "the death of Petrograd—one of the world's most wonderful cities." "The removal of the capital to Moscow meant a sentence of death against Pctrograd, for Petrograd was an entire: ly artificial city," he says. "Without any advantages, built on a marshy swamp, periodically devastated by floods. She only owed her existence to tho fiat of Peter the Great. She could only survive as a. city of luxury and pleasure, as a.centre of the Court and of society, of the bureaucracy and of th'e army. Other European cities, like Trieste, Riga, and Vienna, after the war, have seen the currents of commercial life diverted from them. But th'eir prosperous days are sure to return. "On the contrary, Petrograd, once she has lost her political importance as capital of an empire, can never recover it. She can neither be revived nor transformed. She can never adapt herself to the new conditions. In the near future tourists will view the ruins of Petrograd as our forefathers would contemplate the ruins of mediaeval Rome. After six years of Soviet rule Petrograd is already a dying town. And the death of' Petrograd is the death of one of tho world's most won derful cities, for Petrograd waa; built on an even more colossal scale than Moscow. Even more than Moscow she is a city of palaces and granite embankments, of spacious parks and treasures Of :irV ! "AVhoreas the population of Moscow has vastly increased, the population of Petrograd is little over one-third of what it was before the war. Except for the main avenues, the streets are deserted, the grass is growing between . the cobble stones, tramways are run- . ning half empty, and most of the shops ' and restaurants are closed. The harbour is lying still. A drive down the town is a melancholy experience. The stately mansions of the aristocracy are tumbling down, either because, being built on piles like tho houses of Venice \or Amstferklaml, 'the .foundations are collapsing, or because the basements have been flooded, or because the roofs have been torn d«wn and the woodwork of th'e window frames removed for fuel. The parks are turned into wildernesses. The villas and the "Da*chas," which were once the scenes of a gay life, arc but a heap of ru ; ns. town have shared the fate of the The factories in the suburbs of the palaces in the centre."