Part 2

There are Norwegians and Yankees, with their colours flamboyantly painted on their bows to warn the submarine off; Russians and French, with their tricolours streaming; but most of all English ships, with their proud rain-washed Union Jacks lolling in the wind. I was taken through the whole harbour in a little, arrow-like steam launch--from the Thames! How often it had shot under the arches of our little bridges, and now it was puffing and panting on the vast brown Dvina, be-dwarfed by huge ships, driven by a Lett from Riga, and constantly going short of steam and getting becalmed far from either shore.[1] Besides troops, the French are taking great quantities of alcohol used in the manufacture of high explosives, and I saw many barges heaped up with barrels of spirit and wondered if there were many leaks. The Russian manufacture of alcohol has probably not diminished as a result of the prohibition of the sale of intoxicating liquors in Russia, but has proved to be a valuable war export. This fact is especially important to take into consideration with regard to Russian temperance reform. When the war is over and the market for this alcohol is partially lost, will there not be another movement of resistance on the part of the manufacturers?

[1] Thirteen lines excluded by British Censor. Not to be published.

I saw all manner of crates with machinery, parts of aeroplanes, and the like, and British vessels discharging these things, and I saw grain and flax and timber going on for us from Russia.

Go into the chief restaurant of Archangel, and as like as not all the customers are English captains, and they are reading back numbers of the _Daily Mail_ and talking “ship.” At the Café Paris there is a “skippers’ table,” where they are also captains all, and the waitresses quarrel as to who shall serve there, though none of them knows two words of English. In the Alexandrovsky Gardens you see English sailors with Russian girls, and neither can say a word to the other. Their only language is that of looks. One of our men showed me a card with poetry written and violets painted and asked me to translate the words for him and write an answer. It ran something like this--

What need for words when without them you are so eloquent? Why should the lips move When the eyes speak so well?

Sailors tell wonderful stories of feminine conquests, and it is evident the Russian girls are partial to them. Even at the theatre, in front of you are sitting such unlikely persons as a fireman and a stoker, and one says to the other with disgust, “I can’t understand a blooming word. Can you?” Some Englishmen have exercise books with Russian words and phrases laboriously copied out--an impossible language!

All is going well in Archangel. The Russians, in spite of their inexperience, are handling the immense quantities of materials well, and the “stuff” is all steadily proceeding to the places where it is most needed. New quays have been built, and loops of railway run along them, and some ships, carrying nothing weighing less than three tons, yet discharge all their immense articles of cargo in considerably less time than it took to put them on at Liverpool or Dundee or Newcastle as the case may be.

The Russians earn unheard-of wages in the docks, and the rumour attracts thousands of workers from all parts of Russia. A journalist writing in the _Russkoe Slovo_ in July called it the Russian Klondike. All Russians who go there are pleased with it. The port in its present grandeur is a sort of promise for Russia, and it flatters her commercial future.

I was warned I should not find a room anywhere in the city, and that people paid five roubles a night for the privilege of sleeping in a passage. But I obtained a clean room at the Troitsky Hotel for 2 roubles 75 copecks, which was not dear. Notices in the room were printed both in English and Russian, indicating how many English visitors they have now.

I called on my friend Alexander Alexandrovitch Beekof, the hunter and draper whom I described in “Undiscovered Russia.” He had now opened a boot shop and was rich, selling his wares at three or four pounds the pair. He was proud of his business success and rejoiced in the independence which it gave him. He is now a member of the Gorodskaya Duma, and when a representative of the city was wanted to carry an emblem to the Archangel troops at the front, Beekof was thought to be the best.[2] He shared the hardships of the common soldiers, and was fain to stay at the front, but was mixed up in the great retreat from Austria and felt very sick of everything before he got back to his native city and the boot shop.

[2] Four lines excluded by Censor.

Since I was in Archangel last the young revolutionary exile Alexey Sergeitch, now pardoned and married and teaching history in Moscow, has brought out a little book on the Monastery of Ci. I saw him later when I got to Moscow.

I was invited by the town council to partake of a glass of tea on the occasion of the opening of the electric tramway. All the notables of the town were accommodated on board a special steamer, and went slowly along the Cathedral pier a mile or so to the new electric power station. Here priests met us with banners and ikons and holy water. A service was held in the power station, and the smell of burning incense mingled strangely with the smell of new paint and oil and machinery. Holy water was flung in all corners and over our heads, and then the dynamos were set in motion and the whole place buzzed and groaned. I think Repin, the engineer, proud of having constructed the most northern tramway in the world, was a little anxious lest the holy water should spoil his engines.

But all went well, and we took our seats in the virgin trams to make the first journey, all the notables of the town and with them every beggar and labourer and tatterdemalion dock-hand that could get a footing. In Germany I can imagine how swiftly these gentlemen would have been dealt with. But in Russia “all is permitted” and we had a joy-ride. We went cheerfully along on our parade journey. The conductresses in brand new uniforms and shining metal clips and punches stood with their money bags and their full rolls of tickets. Directly following our trip to the Town Hall the cars were open to the public, and fares would be collected. Car after car drew up and we stepped out and walked up the stone stairs to the long tables and the glasses of tea and the proud speeches of the great men of Archangel.

Now the trams are in full operation, and bring in about £1,000 a week. Archangel is united, and friends within the city have become nearer. All day the trams carry passengers, and all night they carry goods, so I am told.

As I write of this now in the winter after I have come back to London, I imagine that probably now all is frozen over again. The brown river became white, and within twenty-four hours you could drive a horse and cart over it. It did not melt again till the spring. Captains and their crews thinking of leaving in a few days and grumbling because of small delays as they always do grumble, were suddenly condemned to remain idle for months; their ships, dotted here, there, and everywhere in the ice, had a processional aspect, and looked as if they were sailing out and yet never getting forward. The men cut pine branches and made avenues from their ships to the shores, well-trodden roads with names. There was “Broadway” leading to a big American ship, and K---- Avenue leading to the _K_----, and _R_---- Avenue leading to the _R_----. I may not mention the name of any British ship, but the detail has a picturesqueness which is worth noting. The Russian Government paid the owners of these boats hundreds of thousands of roubles damages for this unexpected incursion of Jack Frost. It was highly unprofitable to Russia, but every one made the best of it and no one grumbled.

The happy co-operation of the Russians and the English shows to advantage in Archangel. Russians and English like one another and get on well together there, though the souls of the common people are so different and Russian ways so different from our own.

IV

THE COST OF LIVING

EACH time returning to Moscow I notice change. Last year after the riots it was a city of broken windows and more or less empty streets. This summer I found the life patched up and the windows more or less repaired. There were more people; there was an obvious prosperity of a kind, among the shopkeeping class. Every one talked of the dearness of living and yet every one had more money wherewith to buy. And all shops were thriving. Many shops with German names have now put up a notice to the effect that the owners are Russian. Not that the German shops which were sacked in July, 1914 have recovered. Einem, the great confectioner, with all his branches seems to have sold his retail business. The first-rate art shop and publishing house of Knebel & Grossman has had to obtain a Government loan in order to make a start again and supply the schools, but most precious negatives and blocks and originals perished, and it will be a long time before the firm can make up for what was lost. Many new cafés and places of amusement have been opened, testifying to the money in people’s pockets. Rich fugitives from the districts conquered by the Germans and Austrians seem to have started businesses in Moscow and have imparted to it a tinge of the complexion of Warsaw--part of the extra gaiety of Warsaw seems to have arrived; one notices such new names as that of the Piccadilly Café opposite Phillipof’s.

Apart from that street gaiety, however, there is sufficient sadness and anxiety in the background. As in England and France, every family has its personal stake in the war, and for many that stake has become the wooden cross over a grave. Young and splendid regiments are still to be seen marching, however, and to look at them in their new uniforms one might think for a moment that it was only the beginning, Russia was entering the war, and no one had yet been lost.

There is engaging enthusiasm still, and withal the noted Slav patience that does not ask for things to be done quickly. A slow war in many respects suits the Russian temperament. The most characteristic thing in Russia is the waiting: waiting hours for your ticket at the booking-office, waiting hours for Chinovniks, waiting for one’s money at the bank, waiting for a turn to buy a seat for next week’s performance at the theatre, whole days if Shaliapin be going to sing. And now they are waiting with their accustomed cheeriness and patience.

Certainly they have their hardships, those who dwell in the background. They have plenty of subjects for grumbling and complaints. Their talk is all of the terrible _dorogovizna_. The pretty word _dorogovizna_ means dearness of living, and it is the commonest in the townsman’s vocabulary this season of the war. The price of nearly every commodity in Russia has doubled or trebled since the outbreak of war. One would expect the price of manufactured goods to rise there; but the surprising phenomenon is that, despite the overwhelming abundance of foodstuffs in Russia and Russia’s inability to export any of that abundance, food has become, on the whole, dearer than in Berlin. The _Russian Word_ has a long list of comparative prices, showing that out of sixteen common articles of food ten have increased more in price in Moscow than in Germany. The price of mutton has increased 180 per cent. in Berlin, but it has increased 281 per cent. in Moscow; pork 114 per cent. in Berlin, 142 per cent. in Moscow; white bread 27 per cent. in Berlin, 45 per cent. in Moscow; sugar, 27 per cent. in Berlin, 57 per cent. in Moscow, and so forth. Sugar has in many districts disappeared entirely, and shop windows exhibit the notice “No sugar whatever,” which means not even the dirty brown soft sugar which has displaced the _rafinade_. At Archangel there is a fixed allowance of 1 lb. of sugar per person per month, and that is only accessible for settled inhabitants. As a visitor I was lucky to purchase twenty-four lumps at a halfpenny a lump. At the railway stations at many buffets you are offered sugar candy or raspberry drops with your tea, or a wrapped caramel with your coffee. In cases where they have sugar the waiters have the audacity to put it in for you, lest you should secrete what you did not want. Now cards have been introduced for sugar almost everywhere, even in the villages. The possession of a card entitles you to purchase the article specified on it. At first receiving the food card the heart rejoices. But it is one thing to possess a card and another to find a grocer who has anything to sell. If we introduce cards in England we shall probably experience the same anomaly, though we have certainly more gift for organisation than the Russians. For food tickets to be a success an extraordinary thoroughness in administration is necessary and also a good social conscientiousness on the part of individuals.

When the blue food cards were distributed in one village a rumour spread that the Anti-Christ had arrived in Russia and was giving these out. It is said that one inhabitant of foreign origin bought up all the cards from the peasants at a low price, and they now contentedly buy their provisions from him when he has them.

Meat has so risen in price that throughout all Russia four meatless days have been proclaimed, and on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday you must keep to vegetables, fish, or fowls. On these days no meat may be sold and no cattle may be slaughtered. The meat may not be sold in a smoked state nor as sausage. When this measure was introduced the butchers wailed, if the cows and the calves rejoiced. The chickens suffered for it. But ask a Russian, and he will tell you all suffer for it. The price of vegetables has risen, the price of meat on the days when you buy it has risen, the price of fish and fowl has risen. One day at the National Hotel in Moscow I noticed cauliflowers standing at the superb price of 3 roubles, 50 copecks, about 5_s._

From scores of districts in Russia petitions have been sent to Petrograd--Cancel the regulations as to meatless days. But the regulations are not likely to be cancelled. At the restaurants such small portions are given that it is difficult to make a good meal even at large expense. And the soups which are made without meat are the same price as they used to be when meat was allowed. It seems that if meatless days are to be introduced in Britain it will not be merely one a week for it is always possible to buy meat for two days. They should be for three or four days a week as in Russia. But phenomena similar to those I noted will be repeated with us. Vegetables will rise rapidly in price as a result of meatless days.

Sugar has disappeared because the Germans and Austrians are in possession of some of the richest beetroot country of Russia, and also of several sugar factories. Coffee is scarce because there is war with Turkey; butter and eggs because the peasants, being unable to obtain vodka, have no particular use for extra cash, and won’t sell their products. Speculators are holding large quantities of provisions in ice-houses and waiting till the prices are pushed higher and higher. The banks are holding quantities of sugar. There are many explanations.

In one window in Moscow is exhibited a notice, “Soap is received daily and is sold in lumps of not less than 10 lb. up to 10 A. M.”; in other windows is the notice, “No soap,” and one involuntarily recalls that piece of nonsense--

A great she-bear passing down the street. What, no soap; and so she married the barber,

in which some Mrs. Gallop might read an occult reference to the Russia of these days.

Boots have become difficult to buy. Existing supplies are nearly exhausted. In a boot-shop window in Moscow one pair of boots exhibited--the last. Second-hand boots are valuable. Boot thieves have appeared in the hotels, and a new notice has appeared in your room, “You are requested not to put your boots out at night.” My friend Beekof, of Archangel, made a huge pile of money selling boots. I met him lately in Moscow where he has been purchasing expensive works of art, and even thinks of buying an original Levitan. Boots are too expensive to buy. They say plaited birchbark or lime-bark boots, which used to be sold for 2_d._ a pair in the country, now fetch 5_s._ Peasants are sitting plaiting boots on suburban stations and selling them as fast as they make them. Repairs are so expensive that a parlourmaid spent a month’s wages on having her boots mended. Happily the town councils have fixed a tariff in Moscow and Petrograd at last, both for boots and for repairs.

Russian houses are heated with wood, and strange to say, in the midst of her enormous forests she is short of wood. Wood has doubled and trebled in price. The poor people must freeze. There are not working hands to cut wood--so many having been taken for more profitable occupations. I have been asked a shilling for a packet of rubbishy envelopes. Paper is very dear--some of the best Russian paper mills are in the hands of the enemy. All metal articles are expensive. A decent samovar costs 50 to 60 roubles. There is said to be famine in medicine, and the chemists’ supplies are short. Certainly the Russians seem to be enjoying better health on the whole.

They say all is going to be regulated. The Government is going to take charge of the whole business of supply and there will be cards for everything, and you must call at the grocer and present your card. Once more calls and cards, and cards and calls. But our Russian friends are the most unpractical people. You see every day in Moscow queues a street long, waiting hours with cards in their hands, waiting for a pound or so of sugar. Such queues turned up at the butchers’ shops on the mornings of the meat days that the butchers decided to issue tickets the day beforehand--on each ticket a number designating your turn to buy meat on the morrow. Thus recently 2,000 waited on Arbat from 4 P. M. to midnight for a ticket for a turn next day. The vegetarian propagandist turns up to look at their solemn faces. “Is it worth it?” he asks. Happy vegetarians!

“But you know if I don’t get meat my stomach will go wrong,” says a Russian plaintively.

“What is tea without sugar?” says another. “And what is life without tea?”

Another comes to the doctor and says, “Prescribe, if you please. I’ve lost my appetite. I can’t eat.”

And the doctor replies, like that friend of Carlyle--

“My dear fellow, it isn’t of the slightest consequence.”

“The Army has meat, tea, sugar, white bread?”

“Yes, the Army has all these in plenty.”

“Slava Tebye Gospody! That’s all right.”

V

LIFE IN THE COUNTRY

FROM Moscow I journeyed to see some friends of the artist Pereplotchikof, the E. family, on a small estate in the Government of Voronezh. At the small wayside station an unfamiliar figure greeted me--this was an Austrian prisoner, a Hungarian who could not speak a word of Russian. He was the new coachman, and would drive me the ten miles to the farm. The former coachman has gone to the war, and so now an Austrian prisoner, in the same uniform in which he surrendered and wearing the familiar high military hat, is doing his work. He carried my bags from the station, for there was no porter, and put them in the carriage, and then drove me on through verdant forest and along the terrible road deep in liquid mud and water.

A great feature of the new country life in Russia is the Austrian prisoners at work. One seldom comes across any Germans. But of Austrians there are great numbers. They volunteer to go out to work, rather than remain in the internment camps. In order to obtain Austrian prisoners to work on an estate you apply to the government town, and they are hired out to you at eight roubles a month, four roubles of which are allowed to be deducted for keep. It turns out that on the whole the prisoners work merely for board and lodging and what would keep an ordinary smoker in tobacco. Prisoner labour is altogether cheaper than that of ordinary Russian labourers. So if you can get a strong detachment of prisoners on your estate you are somewhat advantageously circumstanced. No guards, however, are supplied with the prisoners, and you are held responsible for them in case they attempt to escape. The prisoners on the land are generally those who were agriculturists in their native Austria and they are highly serviceable. They do not take their new duties too seriously, but all the same do more work than the average hired Russian labourer would do. To work is more pleasant to them than to sit together and talk or sing, and their industrious habits are a matter of pleasant surprise for their employers.

On Mme. E.’s estate the prisoners were Hungarians. She knew no Hungarian, they no Russian, and no grammars or dictionaries of the Hungarian language were obtainable in Moscow or Petrograd--the only aid to learning the language which Mme. E. was able to obtain was an officer’s war guide containing maps, geographical details, and five or six pages of military phrases with translations. Even so, good progress was being rapidly made in mutual understanding. These Hungarians will carry back to their own country many funny-sounding Russian words, and on the other hand some Hungarian expressions may remain locally.

Certainly the prisoners are of great economic aid to Russia. Each Austrian captured is not only one Austrian less in the enemy ranks, but one harvester more to take in the precious grain. The Russian women, the old men and the children, seem to be insufficient to keep up the present extent of cultivation and to reap the harvest--the labour of the prisoners makes up the deficiency.

In many respects the prisoner of this foreign element in the midst of Russian country life is sufficiently objectionable from the Russian point of view. There are said to have been a number of marriages, though the difference in religion must have precluded the possibility of legal marriage in most cases where it may have been desired.

There is a cloud over the village, and it cannot be said that the war is popular among the women. They want the men back; the wives want their husbands, the girls want their sweethearts. Girls of sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen are persistently gloomy. They feel that time is slipping past without bringing the necessary bridegroom. They should have been betrothed and married by now. Nineteen is a dreadful age for an unmarried girl--she feels herself already an old maid, and is disinclined to tell her age. Pretty Tania the serving-maid does not look so pretty this year; she has let the fact that she is eighteen prey upon her mind. She knows that when the boys come back they will not look at any one so old as she, and she will be left.

On festival nights there is the same singing in the village street, the parade of village fashions, but somehow it is rather meaningless since there are no male partners and no weddings can be arranged. Letters of course go to and fro between the Army and the village, but the soldier does not write to “his sweetheart,” or if he does it is because his sweetheart is his wife. For long engagements do not take place in the country. Queer letters the soldiers send back, full of greetings to neighbours and relatives, and containing little or nothing about the war. There is never any need to censor them. The peasant wives bring their letters to Mme. E. and she reads them aloud. Or they come to her when they want to write their letters, for though most of the men can read and write, the women seldom are able.