Leningrad is Now City of the Dead

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 798, 19 October 1929, Page 18

Leningrad is Now City of the Dead

Hotel Bills £6 a Day . . . Moscow’s Solitary Jeweller - . . A Daily Procession Visits Lenin’s Tomb . . .

OING to Russia,” says Mr. H. J. Greenwall, in “Mirrors of Moscow,” "is still rather a great adventure.” Mr. Greenwall

neither praises nor condemns the Soviet system; liis book is purely a travel book. To get a Russian visa, one must go to Paris or Berlin; then, to avoid trouble, one must make oneself familiar with Customs regulations.

The following- articles may be imported into Russia: one fur article, two pairs of goloshes, outer garments, headgear, toilet articles, a quarter of a pound of tobacco or 250 cigarettes or 40 cigars, one cake of soap.

Going out of Russia each person is al- j lowed to take outer garments, including a fur coat; headgear; three men’s suits j of clothes and three Russian blouses or j three ladies’ dresses and three skirts ‘ and three blouses; six sets of underwear: one dozen pocket-handkerchiefs; , one dozen pairs of socks or stockings; six pairs of shoes; one dozen collars: J three neckties; six towels; three sets of i bed linen; two knitted jerseys; a quarter of a pound of tobacco or 250 cigarettes or 50 cigars, and the inevitable cake of soap. I have set these articles out in detail to show how curiously the Russian mind works. A foreigner going into Russia can hardly take anything he Deeds. The idea is that he can buy practically all he requires in Russia, and this is not true at all. He cannot. On the other hand, the articles which he is allowed to take out of Russia he is hardly likely to need in the least, because in any European country he can buy better articles for less money.

On arriving at an hotel one must first fill up a lengthy questionnaire, then report to the police. Living costs a foreigner from five to six pounds a day; having obtained a bedroom, one must hire bed clothes at eight shillings a day; a jug of hot water costs sixpence, an orange two shillings, a steak six shillings! Hotel servants work one day in three; if one gives a suit of clothes to the valet to be pressed, it probably will not be seen again for three days. Travelling may also become embarrassing; Mr. Greenwall found himself sharing a sleeping compartment with a woman official!

Shopping is difficult. The supply of goods never equals the demand, so that there are frequent difficulties about opening. Sometimes a shop will remain closed until late, a queue

of women waiting outside; suddenly it opens, the women are let in two by two until the stock has all been sold, then the shop closes again. In the whole of Moscow there is only one jeweller’s shop—a dangerous place to visit. Aristocratic Hawkers Yet every main street is lmed with hawkers, selling all kinds of wares. It is a curious thing that all the street hawkers of cigarettes are members of the Russian aristocracy. A friend of mine, buying cigarettes in a Mascow street from an old man, . happened to make a remark in English. The old man answered him in English. Further conversation disclosed that the street hawker spoke fluent French and German. He was an ex-Judge of the High Court.

Leningrad is a city of the dead. The famous Nevsky Prospekt is furrowed like a ploughed field, its once glittering shops are closed, water stands in pools everywhere. The city is so infested with monster rats that the damage they have done is incalculable. Dancing is discouraged, jazz dancing forbidden. Unquestionably the most striking spectacle in Moscow Is the daily queue waiting to view the embalmed body of Lenin in its wooden mausoleum in Red Square. At eight o’clock at night the tomb is opened to the public, and over two thousand file past the corpse every night. Lenin lies on his back as if asleep; his head reposes on a red silk pillow; his eyes are shut. The expression on his face is one of peace, but if you see him from a certain angle as you file out you will notice that he wears a sardonic grin. His hair is thin and red, and he has a small red beard. He wears a khaki tunic, and the lower part of his short body is draped with the French flag f ' the Commune of 1871. His left arm is flung across his breast. His left arm ] lies by his side: I visited the tomb a second time after an interval of ten months. Everything was the same, cept that the thumbnail of the right ham had turned back. Divorce for the Million In Moscow the author met one woman who had been married and divorced eight times in one year Divorce is obtained by simple application. The complications are numerous. J woman will go away for the week-enaw see her mother, and when she re * J . her husband says to her, “My dear, all ine to introduce the new Mad any _I s ,' lovitch. I divorced you on Saturo«> morning, and married this lady in , afternoon. Stay and lunch, wont you.

In Russia, says the author, the wise man tries hard to get into prison »° r some criming (but not political.) ° * Criminal, but not political, fenders are well fed, sleep in dormitories, may smoke, have wireleheadphones attached to their beae. and get “leave" every year. The Bolsheviks claim that their manner of carrying out an execution is tne most humane in the world. The c<on demned man is told to leave his ce some pretext or other. It may oe the Governor wants to see him, o t he is to have a bath. . . . Th* starts off along a dirnly-ht com the where, lurking in the shadows, * executioner, a man in felt shpper • . steps noiselessly out of an P u is _ the nozzle of a revolver behind the p oner's head, and pulls the trigT£ But capital punishment is confine to political offenders. A mere derer may only be sentenced t maximum of eight years’ impris ment!