The Drabness and Disrepair of Soviet Days In the following pictures article, our correspondent pete avcay from the skal sleverip of the Journey By fen ith the tele ore hie mind and cete hima him wondering 'The main interest in this journey ties in the study of routine' and the varied string of daily incides Empire, a city of false wines: whipped galet city which con-boon which occur at Soviet Russia.
These minor happenings give th clues to national life and "health, the thoughts one gendered are ¢ ¥elief from the daily round of bridge and the detective also is a feature of ways. In 20 years een little change except political, standards of rolling stock
been no regrading oF reali lained stationary, th to speak of. Trame into stil trickles through the to rawness, in felt, wis and wearing the solos worse, the felted knee-boot. neck of ick about the Ural Mountains. Siberia has its extra-nee of double track, though died 10 years ayo.
Dalny, the Japanese Manchuria port, where you begin your travels, the Journey over the South Manchuria Railway can be dismissed in single sentence. They are Japanese, efficient, iron in their routine, well oiled "ut most expensive The Chinese Eastern ay a condominium. Tt has bare fficieney of such an Tlarbin, where you will kick your heels for half a week, what time the Soviet Consulate adjudicates on sas, is a drab town, 0 city dreadful both by dey and night, a city packed human tragedy, still filled with wreckage of the Russian Soviet-Russia has nothing to present in the way except "Great Expectation passenger ear stock. It needs a large margin to keep cars in service over a rin of some 4,000 miles—nine days from the Chinese to Polish borders—Russian rolling stock was never remarkable for its up-keep in Tsarist days. Condi tions are worse now as. there is evidently considerable shortage. We were greeted at the Eastern frontier with the news that there would be no dining car for two days, and Tong days were somewhat' shorter for the rush to absorb cabbage soup, replenish tea-pots, and buy fish and sausage. with a sampan alongside to take back to the city, We were just off the British Consulate and hardly out of earshot of the vessel, when the two boatmen stopped and fiemanded twenty dollars. T hadn't got this sum and they threatened to tip me into the water, though if they had tried T think they might have gone in first, for they were bath small men. They shook their fists in my face and rowed up and down for three-quarters of an hour while I, argued with them Chinese, At last they drew in to a muddy spot on the banks where after giving them S00 cash {jumped ashore. As I did so one them grabbed my kat and kept it"
One picked up some notions of poverty, or was it just slackness? As-woodwork going to pieces, fallen gutters, peding paint, the aching void where clocks had been, the lack of uniforms. The chef de station wears a scarlet cap and docs not shave. He and the odd Soviet soldier are the only dignitaries. A ingle soldier clad in self-coloured felt, a felt-covered helmet mean as a skull cap, a waisted great coat which just' does not touch the ground, top boots of felt again, no touch of colour anywhere where once was warmth of scarlet, gaiety of green, and wealth of gilded braid. That soldier seems to be the sombre emblem of a national attitude, divine abuse and to observe his Lenin's Wooden Hut This is a journey of most instru tive contrast, Japan Russia, Imperiali mentality of aristo gropings of the workman imagination thing could illustrate this better than the monument in Moscow which commemorates the Revolution, It is a mean obelisk in ce rote, it is squat, the site has no spaciousness. Lenin, who made history at least, lies' ina wonden hut under the Kremlin walls, when Russia had all the gems of old religion to choose from, in which to give him fitting burial The, Saviour's Church! Would not Lenin have rested better there?
Religion is officially dead in Russia, hut Bolshe might worship there, the colour scheme is $0 appropriate—blood-coloured porphyry and heartless cold marble down below; eyes need never sce the wealth of gold, the glitter >¢ mosaic in the dome.
But there are sad-eyed, poor clad, queues outside of the food shops, The ronds are full of holes, There are few. motor-cars, The street Tromtages are blotched and leprous with neglect, the shops are village stores in their di The bare necessities of life blot out all hisher things perhapay want atrophies 7
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.