CHAPTER IV
MOSCOW
I reached Moscow on Sunday afternoon and was taken at once by “Larkin” to the Foreign Office at the Metropole hotel. As we drove through the picturesque town of many churches we passed great numbers of people enjoying the sunshine. The parks and squares were full of romping children.
In the Foreign Office I was greeted by Litvinoff, who gave me credentials which granted me freedom of action—freedom to go where I pleased and without a guard as long as I remained in Soviet Russia; and Communist life began for me.
The Metropole hotel, like all others in Soviet Russia, had been taken over by the Government. The rooms not occupied by the Foreign Office were used as living rooms by Government employees. The National hotel is used entirely for Soviet workers, and the beautiful residence in which Mirbach, the German ambassador, was assassinated is now the headquarters of the Third International.
No one was allowed to have more than one meal a day. This consisted of cabbage soup, a small piece of fish and black bread, and was served at Soviet restaurants at any time between one o’clock in the afternoon and seven at night. There were a few old cafés still in existence, run by private speculators, where it was possible to purchase a piece of meat at times, but the prices were exorbitant. In the Soviet restaurants ten rubles was charged for the meal, while in the cafés the same kind of meal would have cost from 100 to 150 rubles.
The Soviet restaurants had been established everywhere, in villages and small towns as well as in cities. In the villages and railway stations they were usually in the station building itself or near it. In the cities they were scattered everywhere, so as to be easily accessible to the workers. Some of them were run on the cafeteria plan; in others women carried the food to the tables for the other workers. One entered, showed his credentials to prove that he was a worker and was given a meal check, for which he paid a fixed sum. Needless to say, there was no tipping. I had not the courage to experiment by offering a tip to these dignified, self-respecting women. I think they would have laughed at my “stupid foreign ways” had I done so.
The old café life of Moscow was a thing of the past. If you wished anything to eat at night you had to purchase bread and tea earlier in the day and make tea in your room. This was very simple because the kitchens in hotels were used exclusively for heating water. At breakfast time and all through the evening a stream of people went to the kitchen with pails and pitchers for hot water which they carried to their rooms themselves where they made their tea and munched black bread. There were no maids or bell boys to do these errands for you, and the only service you got in a hotel was that of a maid who cleaned your room each morning.
The working people would buy a pound or two of black bread in the evening on their way home. They had their samovars on which they made tea, and if they felt so inclined ate in the evening. For breakfast they again had tea and black bread like every one else. As a result of this diet hundreds of thousands of people were suffering from malnutrition. The bulk of the people in the city were hungry all the time.
I found the tramway service,—reduced fifty percent because of the lack of fuel,—miserably inadequate for the needs of the population which had greatly increased since Moscow became the capital. The citizens in their necessity have developed the most extraordinary propensities in step-clinging. They swarm on the platforms and stand on one another’s feet with the greatest good nature, and then, when there isn’t room to wedge in another boot, the late-comers cling to the bodies of those who have been lucky enough to get a foothold, and still others cling to these, until the overhanging mass reaches half-way to the curb. I tried it once myself—and walked thereafter. There were not many automobiles to be seen. The Government had requisitioned all cars. The motors were run by coal oil and alcohol, and the Government had very little of these.