OCR Text |
Show POPULATION BF fflSGOlOOBPS ONEiLLION Five Thousand Ruble Note Is Necessary to Buy Pound of Sait Pork TERIJOK T. I-Inland. Russian Tron-tier. Tron-tier. Aug. 20 (By The Associated Press.) A first hand view of letro-xrad letro-xrad and Moscow, those two centers of soviet rule, which are sealed :igainst outside observers, was ohtainert by The Associated Press correspondent just prior tn his deportation to this point Moscow Is a city teeming with activity, its streets, SQUftXes :md bazaars ba-zaars crowded with people, and with , little outward evidence of distress, ex-, ccpt the daily struggle of people seeking seek-ing their allotted quoin of food. Bui j Pctroprad. once one of the busiest and , gayest capitals in the world. Is a cily 1 of deserted streets, with only scattered ' groups of people in those centers Which were formerly the scenes of J greatest activity. I I 'U PRIlsrWS SKKK Traversing the entire length. of tho I N'evskl Prospckt, formerly the Grand i boulevard, running from the Neva river, one pas-scs fewer than a hundred people Along the banks of the Neva from the winter palace, where Xlcho- j las was lant seer, alive, down to the I A lexandro sky bridge, cord wood is, piled high along the beautiful marbU and stone balustrades and throughout th- streets. Ii Is being unloaded frm barges by enforced labor. After tne I conscript labor finishes Its day's work groups of men and women gather through the night to carry uway stray winter supply of fuel. Women are among the workers on the barges, standing waist deep In the waterlogged water-logged raft and handling cro8 cut saws The food prices at Petrograd are generally about 16 per cent higher high-er than at Moscow, where at the end of July beets sold for 4.O00 rubles n pound. (The American dollar Is worth about two or three thousand depreciated depreci-ated rubles. ) Tork then was selling for C.000 rubles: sugar. 4,000; sau, 1,000; black bread 1.000, small white bread rolls. 200 each; potatoes. 700. and eggs. 300 each. Mil. II VHV RULE An atmosphere of military- rule permeates per-meates .Moscow more than any of the other cities. The population is under constant nervous strain and. few are able to avoid arrest by the supreme counter-revolution committee Persons Per-sons disappear into prisons and no charges are preferred against them. If they are finally set free they encounter en-counter the greutest difficulty in living liv-ing The popular saying in the city is that MOSCOW'S population Is divided into three classes those who have been imprisoned, those in prison and those who will be. At present Moscow Is In a gala new red dress entertaining delegates to the third Internationale. Banners and posters appear containing propo-ganda propo-ganda of all sorts, and in many languages, lan-guages, which are as little valued, apparently, ap-parently, as tho new "proletariat" money printed In even more languages. A five thousand ruble note of this Issue Is-sue buys only a pound of salt pork. Moscow's pre-war population of l.BOO.iiOO haa dwindled to 500,000, it Is estimated. no |