Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1922-02-06
TOTAL
TO Be TERRIBLE
IN FAR STEPPES
Russian Peasants Per-
ishing by Hundreds
Of Thousands
Left Homes in Hopeless Quest
for FoOd-Terrible Suffering
and Death Wetcomed-B0d-
les Along Railroad Collected
into Frozen Heaps

Cfa, NolGa Region, Russia, Jan. =
(Ey A. P)-When the SHOWS melt
next spring, the Russian 6teppes,
will be strewn with skeletons.
They Will resemble the high praries
of the American cow country in the
days when big cattle outfits had in
sufficient hay to carry their stock
/ through hard winter
But among the skeletons of cattle
and camels. there will be the bones of
hundreds of thousands of men, women
and children who fell exhausted in
their quest for bread; who lived the
simple lives of their peasant ancestors
lived for centuries and had little COM
ception of the political upheaval
which made this famine more terrible
than that of 1891.
They wandered and millions of
them are still wandering There was
nothing to cat in their homes, so they
started on the trek for bread. Some
drifted westward to tho Volga and
found death in the Typhus- ridden
railway centers, or among the horrors
of refugee camps along the Volga;
others started for Turkestan; still
others moved eastward toward Siber-
ia, the land of gold and wheat which
! has always been so alluring TO the
Russian Mujik who heard little Of its
vastness. it's hardships and it's heart
| leSSEcSs.
I The peasants knew nothing of mod
crn ways. They We're unable to buy
tickets on Their always, unable to get
permits to ride on trains hurdened
, with red army and food for Moscow
and Petrograd. When their animals
i dropped dead the families walked on,
/ always hoping that food lay over tho
next knoll.
! But the country districts have no
grain. or if peasant families have a
small supply. they conceal it in the
effort to prolOnG their own lives until
another crop is harvested. In the
! larger towns there is food for sale at
! fabulous prices. btu the starving re-
fugees have neither money nor goods
to exchange and can only sit down
and await death or trudgc on till they
sink of exhaustion.
| Thebodies which lie. along the rail-
roads are collected on cars and haul
ed to centers where they are piled in
frozen, snow covered heaps to await
burial Freezing refugees remove all
garments from the dead. so the frozen
! rodies are nude when the scavengers
collect them.
Families drift apart and wander
aimlesslv on to their inevitable fate.
Human instincts are lost, and they
become little better than beasts. The
city and town populations are so har-
Gened to suffering that they are little
moved by the misery which lies all
about them. Death seems more mer-
ciful in the country For the refugees;
| they sink into the white covering OF
the endless plain and wolves strip
their bones. '.t
! From Perm and Ekaterinburg TO
| the Caspian sea death is stalking over
the steppes. Russians. Cossacks. kai-
nucks. Kirghiz and Tartars alike are
meeting their end with hopelessnes7
and patience begotten of centuries OF
unequal struggle against political ex-
tortion and unfavorable climatic con-
d;tions. made worse by ignorance OF
scientific methods Of tillng the soil.
American corn will be too late 10
save many of these wanderers
through thesteppes. az well as the
families who have elected to make
their fight in their villages remote
fro mthe railways rather than endure
the hardships and death their neigh
bors have suffered along the main
lines of transportation.
Entire village populations have d,eo
in the provinces east of the Volea
ansthe animals which survive are So
veal, It is impossible to get adequate
horsepower to deliver food TO inc
thousands Of snowbcurd. destitute
| settlements far from food stations.