IN MOSCOW.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 August 1920, Page 11

IN MOSCOW.

THE EXPERIENCES OF AN - The London Times publishes the experiences of an English lady recently returned from Russia, giving a vivid picture of the plight of the so-called free—i.e., unarrested—-inhabitants of a city in the hands of the Bolshevists. About a year ago I was brought under guard to Moscow with the rest of the Petrograd English colony. As many have described the prison life, another description would be superfluous. What is more interesting is the every-day average life of the so-called free. I was the only Englishwoman in the house, where I lived with a number of Russians. The congestion was awful. The unmarried were sometimes allowed a small room per person, provided the floor space, did not exceed eight arsheens (IS sq. ft.). You might be enjoying the luxury of a few square feet more than was allowed, when suddenly, without being consulted, a perfect stranger Would be sent to share your room. Married people were even worse off, husband and wife often being forced to share a room with a grown-up son and daughter: The winter of 10M-1920 was unusually severe, very often freezing, 1 to 20, 25, and even 30deg., and the accompanying discomforts indescribably awful. As there was no transport, there was consequently no wood, except for a few houses where consequential Bolshevists lived Or Sovietsky sloujeschy (Soviet officials). I think worse than. hunger was the suffering from cold, because it meant that we never had a moment free from discomfort and even pain, and the irritation and nervousness arising from it nearly unhinged our minds. How many hopeless imbeciles there are as a result we shall never know. To get up in the j morning and try to wash in a room where there were several degrees of frost ■ was torture—our fingers and toes swelled hideously, and afterwards many suffered from tsingar, a dread disease that carried off many. It arises from hunger and cold, and only the very hardiest withstood it. Every day was the same appalling rush and unsuccessful search for food. This was enough to drive to despair those among us who had children. Just as though to make things worse, .children forgot to bo capricious, and developed enormous appetites—babies who had hitherto been forced to eat their rich milk and dainties of the old regime now wept unceasingly at the insufficiency of watered milk and moist heavy black bread that was sometimes literally uneatable, being weighted with stones or straw, and sometimes with sand. Things got from bad to worse each succeeding day, 1 and the price of food ; was so crazily and nnattainably high that no matter what money you received you could never make both 'ends meet. All these physical trials were bad enough, but they were merely an antidote to the appalling.'depression and worries. For instance, the nightly obuisk or surprise search parties, organised by the Extraordinary Commission. They generally took place at 3 a.m. So those of us who were guilty of such criminal offences . against Bolshevist law as being English, ex-bourgeois, officers' relatives, or having had relatives holding high positions jinder the Czar's regime, quite lost the habit of sleeping until after that dread hour was past. These obuisks were carried out more or less officially. A member of the House Committee' would always accompany the soldiers who were searching and nominally had power to stop any irregularity. But in eases where he had attempted he was generally the next on the list for obuisk and arrest. It depended on the Commission entirely what was taken. Sometimes a few silver coins (besides, of course, all gold and diamonds and valuables), sometimes a camera, sometimes some old letters kept,for sentimental reasons from a husband or a mother. When revolvers were found the owner was immediately shot with his own weapon. When wo sold our second-hand personal.effect? on the market we had in addition to the cold—another_ torture—the. fear of being arrested. That aho was forbidden, and every day at certain hours they made an oblava, or raid, surrounding the market, arresting the sellers, confiscating all goods, and sending sellers to forced labor—sometimes it \va* washing soldiers' clothes, cleaning their barracks or yards. Very many of the sellers were countesses and princesses, generals' wives or relations, professors' daughters, etc. I have seen a general in a disreputable overcoat, dismantled of pagoni (shoulder-straps), selling matches at the street corner, and thankfully accepting a repulsive crust.

LOSS OF HOPE. During the early days of these outrages We were frantic, mad, crazed, enraged, dreaming, of escape. Afterwards we awaited death' With envy, arid forgot to hope for release. Then came tile awful apathy consequent on ill-health from malnutrition. In'the early days of hunger and Wretchedness, before the apathetic stage, we used' to plan together what, we would do immediately on arriving home in England. Some dreamed of white bread and creamy butter, others of fruit, which was on! of the reach of us. all, except berries in season; others of elegant homes'and clothes. But Inter we (til seemed to forget our desires and only to want rest, from the Red Terror, to lie clown in bed at night, not only after 3 a.m.. and to know that no one in all England had' the right to force an entrance; no one dared to touch yon; no one, except at the risk of his liberty, could touch your meanest belonging; or, best of all, no one could seize those near to you and bear them off to that most terrible tiling of all, the oblivion from which so many have never emerged. They never can, because they have been buried under covfr of darkness in masses in the huge pits outside Petrograd and Moscow, for some trifling offence or for none, or for the absurd reason that you were the distant relative or acquaintance of some one who was under suspicion. Or, as happened very often, so wonderful and fearful wa3 their organisation, by mistake.