Potatoes—1-1/2 copecks a pound.
Sugar—16 copecks (eight cents) per pound.
Tea—1 ruble, 80 copecks (eighty cents) per pound. (Very cheapest.)
Coffee—40 copecks (twenty cents) a pound for unburned coffee.
Milk—10 copecks a “jug.” (About five cents a quart.)
Cabbage and carrots—2-7 copecks per pound.
Taken the year through this is almost a complete diet-list of the Russian coal-miners and industrial workers in general in the vicinity of Yusofka. During the church fasts hemp and rape-seed oil is consumed a good deal. And vodka should be added, for every workman drinks much of it. The revenue from the vodka monopoly, indeed, is one of the stablest sources of income to the government. The more the people drink the better Russia’s financial balance-sheet appears to the world. Truly Russian economy this! Five hundred and fifty million rubles a year is a substantial income even for a government, and this from a liquor containing forty odd per cent. alcohol. Vodka costs about three copecks per bottle to manufacture and sells for forty copecks.
From this list it will be seen that the articles which are most necessary, and most used, are the highest in price—tea, sugar, coffee, vodka. Meat is cheap, but there are frequent church fasts, when meat is forbidden.
The clothing worn by the Russian coal-miner is frequently home-made, like the clothing of peasants. If of cloth, cloth made from hand looms. Coats are of sheepskin. In the mines of South Russia, especially in the deeper pits, next to no clothing is worn by the men at the face.