New Britain herald., 1921-10-28
BATUM AND TELLS
 SEEN BY REPORTER
A. P. Correspondent Describes
 Conditions in Russia i

PreSS)-Entrance into Russia through the Black Sea may be compared to a visit to dreaded battle front. There's lots of fear of death and destruction, but somehow one does not find them. Thesc elements to uneasy sleep seem to turk always just a little farther along.
 The traveller has himself rammed full of vaccines - vaccines, against cholera, pest. smallpox and typhoid, is made properly i'll in advance, only to find that these diseases are just now out of season. The only thing he needs is quinine, not for himself but for malaria patients about the sea- ports.
 Fear of Russia should not be based on fear of violence, of bodily hurt, so much as to the discomfort of living in a land where social and economic conditions are very hard. Money is hard to earn. Dock laborers at Ba- tum, when they work, may earn 5000 rubles, or eight cents per day, and this Is the price of two pounds of bread. h
 After all the stories of revolutions, the murders and what not. one Is dis tipctly surprised to find people going about as usual. There seem to be more people than ever before. One wonders where they come from. They swarm about the cities, the train sta- tions in the country, thick as ants.
 Yet rich and poor seem alike en- gagged in the process of getting out of Russia. Many of the rich have done so. Their old life has been broken up, their social life, their life <% od nd vin fny Their manner of living and thinking doesn't it in to the new chaos, and they prefer to get to Constantinople- so much so that 1t has become almost a Russian city - and thence filter through to Europe and there live on charity and their wits. Some manage to retain wrecks of their fortunes, for old Russia was rich beyond the dreams of. western Europe. Everybody seems to have had gold and jewels in abun- dance. Those with property are still slipping away, and without too much difficulty or hindrance from the So- viet
 Only they must use caution. A cer- tain Melikov, the Russian-Armenian owner of the newspaper Horizon, in Tihis, had his home reQuisitioned, so he got leave to depart to Constanti- nople. On the way his baggage was searched. diary was found telling his inmoSt reflections about the Bolshe- wiki and the new order of life, diary that he possibly was intending to pub fish. The foolish man was hauled be- fore the "Cheka" the street police with extraordinary powers, from whose de- cision there Is no recourse, and he was executed.
 Landing from one of the various passenger and freight vessels that run weekly in and out of Batum, to and from Constantinople, the traveller finds that the Bolsheviki are not such dreadful people after all. It Is far easier than getting to or from ship in Constantinople, where the Allies reign,
 There are lot of guards at the gangplank, to steer departing travel CTS through the customs, but most anyone passes back and forth whe wishes. There is first the formality o1 telling the port control who you are He is a good d-humored, patient, glori fled Red guard who knows no Ian guaEe but Russian, and that indiffer. ently, there are so many dialects o1 Russian. He wears a peaked cal pushed on the back of his head, witt its red star and the spade and shove of labor.
 The passengers, who have careful, ]. collected all sorts of credentials T Constantinople from Soviet commer cial missions, crowd about him, ant he takes their names and looks cas uaIly. at their vises. The, Americans who have only a bit of typrewrittel paper, receipt from the United State Consul for their passports, general. have a Soviet letter in addition. Tn control officers doesn't stamp thei papers afresh to show they may land He merely indicates with wave the hand that passengers may debarh and they do, full of surprise that the have not been disturbed. Travellers Il Europe are so in the habit of bein bothered that they think something wrong, here, that they haven't been
 Ashore, in the sunshine, amid tn tree-lined streets, sitting in carrias with rubber tires, driving to goo restaurant, the traveller is still won dering why something hasn't happen ed to him; but 1t probably will not s long as he has money to pay his wa and especially if he is an American thanks to American charity influenc and the general good standing o
 
 Americans in the hearts of the people
 In Batum, now controlled by tn Moscow Soviet affairs seem to sli along in a certain groove. Nobod worries much about the polite: changes, but they do fear the "Cheka.
 The most notable social change i the people of this little San Francisc set by the seashore amid palms an flowers at the foot of fertile hi country. is that on the beach. In tf old days the girls and women of tf city used to bathe often without batf ing suits in a space set aside for thel where no men were allowed. Durin the past two years the wire fence shu ting off this space has been stole and the place for the women may encroached upon; but many of u women continue the old custom
 bathing without suits.
 While there is less and less furn ture in the fine houses behind U park, at the leading restaurant ms be had as good a meal as in Par or London at one third Paris or Lo don prices. The strict morale of Il early Soviet days has gone everywher