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.”