Americus times-recorder., 1920-06-23
By J. HERBERT DUCKWoRTH,
N. E. A. Staff Correspondent.

N. E. A. Staff Correspondent.
Copyright, 1920, by The Newspa-
per Enterprise Association.)
REVAL, Esthomia, June 23.-
Especial Cable. u asked many Rus
slams:
"Are you afraid of Polish invas-
ion?"
"We welcome no invader, yet any
thing is better than this hell!" they
told me-
Marketing by Russias women is
complicated, tiring and hazardous
chore.
theoretically. all trade in Russia
is abolished
The stores of Pskov, one thriv-
ing town of $4,000 people, now are
closed and boarded up. Grass grows
tail on Sergeyevaskaja, the main
street of Pskov.
But the illegal market fiourishes.
In an alleged communist republic,
individualism still exists! Century
old habits die hard.
Russian people still buy, sell and
barter.
The shrewdest and strongest and
most cunning get sufficient and the
old, the weak and the ignorant starve
and die.
I went marketing with the women
at Pskov.
The wife of the superintendent of
the soviet flax factory acted as my
guide.
This woman's problem is to pro-
vide food for a family of five. Her
husband draws the insufficient work
ers' ration and his wages are 3,400
rubles month. Bread sells for 500
rubles a pound.
The market square was filled with
Red soldiers and townpeople. Even
the commissar's employees were there,
for L recognized some of them as be-
ing of the Extraordinary Commls-
sion for the Suppression of the Coun-
ter Revolution and from communist
headquarters!
"We Must Live," officials Excuse.
what are you doing here?" l
heard one commissar ask another.
"You are sabotaging the revolution"
eve cannot accomplish everything
in day. was the reply of his COM
panion. "We must live."
The second commissar took salt
from US as well as money in exchange
for his goods.
The Russian peasant farmers do
not want Soviet money, but they do
want salt for use in preserving meat.
Jews of Sskov have "cornered" salt
and now the townspeople are ex-
changing Soviet money for czar
money and then buying salt with
czar rubles and exchanging the salt
for farm produce.
The market stalls that are closed
belonged to the petty bourgeoise.
| bought 10 eggs for ~ound and
a half of salt.
One fish cost a nound of salt and
a pound of cheese cost four pounds
of salt.
Six small carrots cost a pound of
salt, while two ~ounds of beef might
be bartered for two pounds of salt.
There is a prison penalty for buy
ing or selling, yet 5000 people
thronged the market place.
l myself bought "the makings. !"
A pound of Siberian tobacco cost s.
900 rubles "a ruble was 81 cents be-
fore the war;, while the paper to
make cigaretts from-a sheet torn
from a used Office letter book-cost
me rs rubles (about $3.50 at the
pre-war rateO
| wanted some small souvenirs and
was taken to the back door of the
stall. An employe told me that the
proprietress would fetch things she
had hidden at home to the market in
the afternoon. This she did.
What Money-Dealing Means.
It is a strange thing, if the Boil
shevist revolution was really success
full, that the Jews, with proverbial
instinct of bargaining, should now be
buying cZar money.
1t is also significant and amusing
that on my second day in Pskov, a
commissar (Bolshevist Officially visit
ed me at my hotel and offered as a
personal favor" to exchange my
czar and Kerensky money for Soviet
rubles.
"You must keep it a secret" he
said. "You are liable to be shot"
There are no lights in Pskov. I'm
der daylight-saving scheme, the
clocks are running three hours fast
and, as result, the people wander
the streets at 1 o'clock in the morn
ing and do not rise until o'clock
The only amusement in the city
is the open-air moving picture show
The program includes quotations
| from tho Snapches of Tpnin anr
Trotzky and bulletins from the front