The foreigners who discuss the situation with me all express the opinion that the Soviet outlook has greatly changed during the last two Caviare—With Luck There are even two categories of tickets obtainable, the better grade entitling us to caviar with our meal, supposing there is any. Today our luck is in, and the caviar is forthcoming enabling up to look down our noses at the passengers whose tickets do not entitle them to it.
But, to our astonishment, the proletariat are up and coming, and not only caviar but champagne is on the menu of three ofücers at the next table. Awed by this extravagance, we whisper to each other that they must get a rebate or a pass, the more so when we discover that the champagne costs £3 10s. a bottle.
But the three officers seem quite happy, and at the end of the meal they produce wads of notes and pay up in the normal manner, which leaves us more bewildered than ever, particularly when we are told that a colonel gets only 1,000 roubles or so per month.
£16 a Pair of Shoes The whole way across Russia this problem of prices arises to confuse and aggravate us. Milk at the wayside stations costs 1s. 8d. a pint, and even bread is about 1s. 6d. a loaf. Cabbage is selling at 10s. a lb, a pair of shoes cost £16, and no one outside the Army wears boots which are fit to be seen. Women's dresses must be fantastically dear, for we cannot find a single well-dressed woman—by European standards—during the whole of our journey.
"There is, however, a vast improvement in conditions all along the line since my last trip in 1937. Roads are being built, houses are going up everywhere, cars and lorries are to be seen at all the larger stations. The crops are better, there are cattle in the fields, and peasants are working on the land which was untilled before.
Much of this is probably accounted for by the new Soviet policy of sending divisions out to the East together with their womenfolk, and allotting to them on arrival certain traéís of land, which they are encouraged to cultivate for their own benefit.
Troops Trek to the East Six months ago there were said to. be at least half a million Russian soldiers in Eastern Siberia, And to judge by our own experience, this number has been largely augmented recently. During the four days which
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