Evening star., 1919-09-21
EKATER|NOS[AV
I NAMED FOR QUEEN
Scene of Reds Wholesale
Slaughter Has Grown Like
American Boom City.

Ekaterinoslav, where the boIsheviki
evacuation was accompanied by
Wholesale executions of more than
1000 citizens, according to reports
which have just reached the United
States. is the subject of the following
bulletin from the Washington head
quarters of the National Geographic
Society:
Once there stood on the banks of
the Dnieper. some ESQ miles south
west of Moscow, and just above the
deep assures and whirling rapids of
the region where that river struggles
through granite barriers, a Polish
castle. The Cossacks destroyed it.
"A hundred years later, toward the
end of the eighteenth century. another
castle stood there. which had much
to do with the history of Ekaterino-
slav and with Russia itself Until
the beginniI- : of the world war that
castle still was standing and was
used as a palatial club for the no
biIity.
Originally that club was the palace
of Potemkin. Russian waiter
Raleigh, who won the favor of Cath
crime II by handing her a plume on
the day she dethroned her husband
kept in her graces by maintaining a
social lobby for lavish and bizarre
entertainments, died of eating
and was buried in a pretentious tomo.
only to have his bones thrown on
scrap heap when Paul succeeded
Catherine.
Location Happily Chosen.
ITO tickle the vanity of his royal
mistress. Potemkin arranged that she
should found the city adjoining his
estate, and that it should bear her
name. So happily chosen was the
location that, though the city is less
than $50 years old. il ranks among
the first ten cities of Russia in popu-
lation.
of the government or district, of the
same name, which not only lies in the
fertile black soil grain-producing re-
gion which the Germans coveted so
strongly during the war. but there
also are rich deposits of iron and coal.
The Dnieper drains a wooded area
down which timber is f1oated until 1t
reaches Ekaterinoslav, which became
a timber center because it is the last
station before the rapids and twisting
of the river farther south. Beside
grain and timber, horses. cattle ands
wool also were marketed there.
Busy as it was. and large as 1t
was, for Russia, with it's 100000 in
habitants. Ekaterinoslav seemed sim
gularly devoid of distinctive or pic
aturesque features. 1t has grown like
an American boom city. for fifty years
ago it had less than 10000 people. One
may imagine that provincial Russian
cities had their inconveniences for
the traveller when it/is recalled that,
since the days of our civil war. GER
tain city fathers of Moscow opposed
street lights because, they said. it
was the duty of citizens to carry their
lanterns with them by night. Eka-
terinoslav lay within the Jewish pale
of the cars regime and a fourth of
the Inhabitants were Jews.
Reminders of Her Rule.
'The broad Catherine Prospekt.
bronze statue. and other reminders
are to be found in the name city of
that strange German woman who was
elevated by the intrigues of Frederick
the Great, espoused her adopted Rus
sia SO devoutly that she begged the
court doctor to bleed the German
blood from her veins, formed her
cabinet of her lovers and yet ruled
Russia so acceptably that her public
acts won the praise of many his
torians while her private life fur
nished constant scandal for the courts
of Europe to gloat over. There is
suggestion of the 'Nicky-Willy' cor.
respondence of recent fame in her let
ters to Frederick William II. whom
she addressed as Brother Gu and of
the mysterious influence of the latter
day Rasputin in the methods by
which Potemkin remained political
master of Catherine long after she
had ceased to be his royal mistress"