During the last nine months Madame Lelina has taken 30,000 children into Government homes and preparations are made to take 10,000 more during the next three months. The three new institutions which I visited are attractive suburban homes of wealthy emigrés. The Government has taken these over and is putting groups of 40 children in charge of specially selected and trained men and women. The older children go out to school. For the younger children kindergarten activities are provided and much time is spent out of doors. An atmosphere of home life has been developed which is surprising considering the short time the institutions have been organized and the difficulties they have had to contend with. This plan, which I am told is permanent, is a most encouraging feature of Madame Lelina's work.
Requests to have children placed in the Government institutions are turned over to a special corps of investigators. In each house there is what is known as a poor committee which must also approve the requests and the local soviet is required to pass upon the commitment of the child to an institution. The large number of children taken over by the city is due to the number of orphans and half orphans caused by the war and to the impossibility of many poor families providing their children with food during the recent famine. In cases where several children of a family are taken they are placed in the same home. Frequent opportunities for relatives to visit the homes are provided. The amount of sickness has been surprisingly low considering the great amount of disease in Petrograd during the last few months. In one group of 300 children there have been no deaths within the past nine months, and among all the children there have been very few cases of contagious diseases.
The difficulties which Madame Lelina faces are numerous. First, Russia has never had an adequate number of trained workers and many of those who were trained have refused to cooperate with the present regime, and, secondly, though the Soviet Government has adopted the policy of turning over to the children's homes and the schools an adequate supply of food, regardless of the suffering of the adult population, still it has been impossible to get certain items of diet, as, for instance, milk. It is true, however, that among these children one sees few signs of undernourishment or famine, and in general throughout the city the children seem much better nourished than the adult population.
I had planned to visit other institutions but was unable to do so. I was told of a large palace which has been taken over as a home for mothers. Here all women who so desire are sent after childbirth with their children for a period of two months.
The health department, which asserts that there are in addition to the 100,000 bedridden people in the city, another 100,000 who are ill because of undernourishment though able to go to the food kitchens, has been very successful in securing from the local soviets special food supplies to be provided sick persons on doctors' orders. At each food kitchen the board of health has a representative whose business it is to give such special diet as may be possible to undernourished individuals.
(Thereupon, at 12.50 o'clock p.m., the committee adjourned subject to the call of the chairman.)