Lived in Commissar’s House.
Almost immediately after this interview with Krassin, and when the Bolsheviks realized that they had nothing to gain from me, I was ordered to vacate my room at “The House of Spies,” viz: No. 10, at two hours’ notice. This was the work of Rosenberg, but he cut off his nose to spite his face, for during the rest of my stay in Moscow I lived in places where there were no guards on the doors or aristocratic spies to entice me into making counter-revolutionary statements.
As the Bolsheviks made no effort to provide me with other quarters I was forced to live in a friendly Commissar’s car at the railway station, which was then waiting to take him back to Siberia. I remained in the car for a week and then found a room in an apartment house on the Kuznetzki Most, the Bond Street of Moscow. The house, which was tenanted chiefly by Soviet employees, was indescribably dirty and verminous.
It was only when, after having been forced to leave No. 10, I had to provide my own meals that I realized what it cost to feed oneself even in the most frugal manner. Taking the exchange current at that time, viz.: 2,500 roubles to the dollar, and converting the rouble prices into their American equivalent, black bread cost 25 cents a pound, white bread $1, butter $2.50, rice $1, meat 50 cents, sugar $2.50, tea $6 and potatoes, which were comparatively cheap, 4 cents a pound.
The foregoing are so-called speculative prices for foodstuffs which are purchasable on the market, whereas the Soviet prices for food obtainable with cards are only a fraction of these.
Buying and selling, except by and to the State, is illegal and the market itself is an illegal institution. As, however, it provides a source of large illicit income to the Commissars of the Emchika (Moscow Extraordinary Commission) it is allowed to operate. The only sellers on the market who are not subject to sudden arrest are those who have an understanding with the Commissars and pay them a regular fixed sum per month for their protection.
The market is raided by the soldiers of the Emchika daily. The arrests per raid average about 60 persons, buyers and sellers. The arrested are herded from the market to the point of preliminary inspection, which is in close proximity to the market place. Here those who are able to make it worth the while of the examining Commissars are set at liberty after their goods have been confiscated; those less fortunate are thrown into prison where they remain sometimes for months without ever being brought before the semblance of a court.
HUNGER AFFLICTS ALL MOSCOW UNDER BOLSHEVIK RULE
By Hector Boon.
Copyright, 1921, by the Press Publishing Co. (The New York World).