ENGLISH LADY IN MOSCOW.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 October 1920, Page 9 (Supplement)

ENGLISH LADY IN MOSCOW.

AWFUL EXPERIENCES. HUNGER, COLD AND DIRT. SUFFERINGS OF THE CHILDREN. The Loudon 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 Bolsheviks. 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. AVliat is move interesting is the every-day "average life of the so-called free. I was the only Englishwoman in the house where 1 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 square feet arsheens (IS sq. ft.). You might be enjoying the luxury of a few square feet more tha.ii 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 1019-IP2O was unusually severe, very often freezing to 20, 20, 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 Soviet-sky Sloujesehy (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 imbeciles there are as a result we shall never know. To get up in the 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 tsingal, a dread disease that carried off many. It arises from hunger and cold, and only the very hardiest withstood if. 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, .lust as though to make things worse, children forgot to be capricious-and developed onormouse 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 stone* or straw, or sometimes with sand. Things got from bad to worse each succeeding day, and the price of food was so crazily and unattainably high that no matter what money you received you could never make both ends meet. AH these physical trials were had enough, but they were merely an antidote to the appalling A MENTAL •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 Bolshevik law as being British, ex-bourgeois, officers' relatives, or having had relatives holding high positions under the Tsar's regime, quite lost the habit of sleepiug until after that dread hour . was past. These obuisks were carried out more or less officially. A member of the House Committee should always accompany the soldiers who were searching, and nominally had power to stop any irregularity. But in cases where he had attempted he was generally the next on the 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 liia own weapon. When 'we sold our second-hand personal effects on the market we had in addition to the cold—another torture -—the fear of being arrested. t That also 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 labour—sometimes it was 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. During the early days of these outrages we were frantic, mad, crazed, enraged, dreaming to escape. Afterwards we awaited death with envy, and forgot to hope for release. Then came the awful apathy consequent on ill-healfjli 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 arriv. ing home in England. Some dreamed of •white bread and creamy butter, others of fruit, which was out of the reach us all except berries in season pothers of elegant homes and clothes. But later we all seemed to forget our desires, and only to want to rest from the lied Terror, to lie down in bed at night, and 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 touch you; no one, except at the risk of his liberty, could touch your meanest belongings; or best of all, no one could seize those near to you and bear them off to that most terrible thing of all, the oblivion from which so many have never emerged. They never can, because they have been buried under cover 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 was their organisation, by mistake.