Traveler's Tale

The few Americans in Soviet Russia are not permitted to travel about much. One who took a long trip recently wrote to his friends in the U.S. a tale indicating that the people there are still more Russian than Soviet. Excerpts:

Comrades of the Cucumber. The best and the worst of the famous Russian soul seems to come out on trains. The camaraderie is overwhelming; the crudity unbelievable. At every stop someone got off to fill my canteen with vodka, which was then redistributed to all hands. We collected an accordionist, a Hero of the Soviet Union, a discharged sailor and enough other people to make movement in our compartment almost impossible.

We shared our food and our languages and our songs. The Hero of the Soviet Union staggered down a succession of station platforms demanding cucumbers for his American comrade, and he eventually got them too, heaven only knows how. The railroad man sang the bass part to the entire Easter Mass in church Slavonic, and was half way through it a second time before he fell blissfully asleep. And then there was the offensive individual from the other end of the car, who apparently felt that he was not getting his just share of attention and fired two shots from a pistol through the door of the compartment into the corridor. He was removed at the next stop.

No one was killed, but the hangovers next morning were sickening.

Archangel was having a flood and the train had to stop at a nearby village, where we transferred to a river steamer. There was a mile and a half of deep mud between the station and the dock, with no transportation. There were porters at the station, but they knew their own value and the prices they were asking were outrageous. To show brotherhood, my baggage was distributed by the discharged sailor, who took the heaviest piece himself along with all his own; and the trek began. It was cold and muddy and miserable, but the psychological atmosphere was warm and stimulating.

Nothing of the sort, I am sure, has ever happened to a Russian in America. But neither have the circumstances which would have made it necessary.

Archangel itself is a good old-fashioned Western-frontier town in spite of its 300 years. You have only to look down the nearest side street to see a first-class fight at any hour of the day or night. Men, women & children are likely to relieve themselves on any street--except the main street. The streets and roads are so bad that when anyone travels any distance in and around Archangel in a car, it is news and is reported as such. Pravda Severa, published in Archangel, carried an item about a doughty citizen who drove for six versts (four miles) with his entire family to attend a local celebration. He has my deepest respect.

A Vestire of Capitalism. And then there was the railroad trip to Murmansk. The coach was one of the type accurately described as "hard." Along one side, shelves were arranged, two feet wide and three deep, genuine, solid, unyielding wood--our bunks. From the other side, similar shelves protruded into the car for our daytime seats. In all, there were some 36 people, including the Russian equivalent of a U.S.O. theatrical troupe. It was not very comfortable. No one ever undresses in a Russian train to sleep, but in & "soft" car*there are blankets and pillows. In a hard car, you "sleep" in your overcoat with a suitcase for a pillow, and the din of snores, general chatter and song is a bit nerve-racking.

The troupers borrowed 300 rubles from me to buy drinks in the dining car, then stole my cigarets and sold them to pay me back. Of course they kept me well supplied with Russian cigarets for the balance of the trip, so I really have nothing much to complain about. The whole incident smacks strongly of Chekhov, but there is a flavor of robber-baron capitalism about it that is mildly upsetting.

The Fate of Deanna. They asked questions. "How much does a liter of milk cost in America--in Russian money?" "What is the best jazz band in America?" "How high is the Empire State Building?" "Is it true that Deanna Durbin is dead?" The last question they asked over & over, and were greatly relieved when I assured them that that was just fascist propaganda. I told them that she had merely had a child --although even now I'm not sure that it wasn't Shirley Temple who did.

"Who is her husband? Is he rich? How old is he? How old is she? What does he look like? What is the name of her next picture?" And so on into the night, to the accompaniment of accordions and balalaikas and carefree laughter.

The one member of the troupe I will always remember fondly was the vocalist. He was writing a song in two languages, along the lines of Darling je vous aime beaucoup and Bei mir bist du schon. His last lines are all I can recall. They went:

Ya skoro very skoro budu vas vstrechat

Darling, I love you all right.

He stubbornly refused to alter the last line, pointing out that "very much" does not rhyme with vstrechat, which, as any fool can plainly see, is quite true.

The trip back to Moscow was made in a soft car. My traveling companions were a woman doctor, with her two sons, three and five years of age, who tramped on my shoes, vomited on the floor and screamed steadily eight hours a day. But after the U.S.O. troupe, I didn't even mind. The doctor seemed pretty much sold on the idea that I was a SPY, and every time I stood up to look out the window her eyes narrowed and the muscles in her jaw quivered angrily. You could almost feel the military security of the Soviet Union tottering.

She had an impediment in her speech, which made her difficult to understand; but her repeated allusions to the coming war between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. were distinct and unmistakable. So you see they have those in the Soviet Union, too.

This trip took 66 hous. I was never so glad to see Moscow.

Power of the Press. Everyone these days seems to be studying English. Little children greet you on the streets with shouts of "Good Morning" or "Good Night." On a wall the other day I saw chalked, in neat English script, "Long Live Spartak's Football Team!"

I had never really understood why there are always such long lines of people in front of the newspaper kiosks. Copies of Pravda and Izvestia are posled every-where for anyone to read. Observation ou the train, however, shows that newspapers provide not only the intellectual nourishment for the people, but wrapping, toilet and cigaret paper as well. ^

More precisely, soft seats. The Soviets have substituted this two-class system of rail travel for the old Czarist three-class system of blue (luxurious), yellow (well off) and green (poor) cars. Abolition of classes in the classless society has meant that social differences are replaced by differences in material quality of the seats. The difference in cost remains.

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