The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1921-11-26
The Horror of Famine
Russia in the Grip of a Great
Hunger

Hunger
Samara, On the Volga, Oct. q
(By a Staff Correspondent of The
Associated Press) ).-The numerical
and geographical extent of the
great famine cannot be given.
There is today and has been as
much food available in Samaria,
for those who have money. as in
Baku, on the Caspian Sea. 1000
miles distant. The Russian refu-
gees from Bolshevism in Constan-
tniople are suffering from hunger
and lack of clothes almost as much
as those Russians in Poltava and
they in their turn as much as those
in Orenburg.
The Associated Press corre-
spondent completed journey from
Constantinople to Moscow by way
of Tifis, Baku, Astrakhan and Sa-
mara, and everywhere found in
tense misery, the most sordid Of
which was seen in the dreary steppe
region between Tiflis (Gaorgia) and
Baku (port Of Aberbaisan on the
Caspian Sea-.
There revolution after revolution,
for five years, has left trail Of de-
struction and ruined houses and
wrecked railway stations which
cannot be matched in Russia. Add
ed to the lack of food. is the con-
slant battle with malaria, cholera,
and typhus, and added to these is
the cold against which there is little
shelter or fuel.
No more pathetic sight was seen
than that of the Baku central rail-
way station where thousands of
men, women and children, going
nobody could say where, were
camped on dirty sidings, for the
most part dressed in rags and eat
ing scraps of food like hunted ami
mails.
To the north, along the Volga
in Russia, the misery is often Of the
respectable, cleanly kind. At
Czaritzzyn thousands of families
are living in railway cars. Others
have been housed in villas and
palaces.
Begging is rather the exception
than the rule everywhere in the
famine regions.
The German colonist villages and
towns along the Volga are so clean
ly and orderly, surrounded by such
florid luxuriance of field and forest,
that it is hard to believe their peo-
pie are suffering from hunger. AS
everywhere in Russia, the churches
are open, and services are held. At
Volsk, when the correspondent at
tended vespers, he was followed out
of the church by one Of the priests
who begged that food come from
America before his people starved.
In the worst areas there is far
more hunger swelling than was
seen in Vienna in the winter Of
1918. This is the last stage of star
vation and when it comes neither
food nor medicine will help.
The majority of such cases are
to be seen in the. cities, about the
railway station, in the trains or
about the landing stages and on
the steamers Of the Volga, where
hundreds Of thousands of peasant
wanderers are seeking to reach
friends in districts where they
imagine food conditions are better.
The government is trying to dis
courage such wanderings but they
are continuing.
The distances made by peasant
families are incredible. At Sara
TOW, about the river front, may be
met families from Orenburg going
towards the Ukraine, where the
crops did not fail, and then fami-
lies from Astrakhan going up river
to some one Of the German vii
lagos such as Volsk or Baronov.
While there is perfect order in
all Russia, on every hand the in
dividual struggle for life, for daily
food, is bitter and hard. No one
thinks of anyone else. Robbery is
limited, as robbers are shot when
caught. but trickery in small trad
ing is the rule. A warm place to
sleep, something to eat, and cloth
ing, are the beginning and end Of
daily life. Children are brushed
aside, ignored Or treated like little
animals
A person invited to meal will
eat twice what good manners would
permit. He is laying in a stock of
food. building up his body. he fig
ureS, for the winter cold. Those
with money are boarding food. In
some places peasants refuse to sell
bread at any price. They are
afraid Of the winter famine.