New Britain herald., 1922-09-15
RUSSIANS TURN ID HORSE RACING FAD
Nearly as Popular as National Tea Drinking Custom

Moscow, Aug. 2o.-Horse racing
 Tn Russia, nearly as popular in the old days as tea drinking, is slowly
 coming back. mere are so many race followers in
 Russia that even during the world
 war 1t went on about as usual Not until the revolution came, when the
 country was almost turned inside out
 was racing forced to close down.
 Four years ago, when racing was
 actually given up millions of persons
 thought 1t meant the end of every- thing.
 But this summer harness racing be-
 gan again in Petrograd, Moscow and various other cities. Now Russia, or at least the racing fans. are begin.
 ming to feel that after all the world
 has started to right itself again.
 The government conducts the sport; the pari-mutuel system of betting; the concessions at the tracks, and everything in general, and the army helps to keep things going in orderly fashion. Soldiers see to 1t that no one gets in free, and that there are no small boys, nor men. peeping through the fences. A soldieir band furnishes music between races, when the crowd scrambles to place its rubles on It's favorite horse. The racing in Moscow goes on three days week. The track is just at the edge of town, near many fine old residences, now community houses with tin stove pipe protruding from every other window.
 All the profits ,as the government announced at the beginning, go toward fund for the relief of sufferers in the famine districts. The races are under the direct charge of the Soviet horse department, of which General Brussloff Is the chief Gen. eral Brussloff is as we'll known In Russia for his interest in clean sports as he was as a fighting man
 Individual horse owners participate in the various events, but the ma jority of the trotters are owned by the government. Many of the horses were sired by American stallions.
 If Russia has her troubles, they are not in evidence at the pavilion There are more smiling faces and | laughter at the races than any other | place in Moscow.
 The track itself is as good as ever, but the block-long grandstand Is all | run down at the heel like so much of Russia. It has not ben painted in seven or eight years. and many of the fixtures have been torn away, for fire wood, perhaps in winter.
 Ruf thQ nroW5 iS there are nearly as many women as men. The latter in general appear ance are healthy and we'll fed, and here and there fat man bobs about n the excitement of winning or los ng bet Many of them wear straw hats and pongee suits, naturally vel ow, but more yellow than ever now with wear and age. Ordinary trouss ars and the white linen Russian olouses are the popular dress for the nen, as they are cool and cheap.
 The women as rule are fairly we'll dressed, as fashions go today in Russia. But none are fat-only a ew are even plump. Their dresses re of good material in most in- tances pre-war stuff, altered and made over time and again during the ears of stress until. if inspected loosely, one may see the sewing marks nd shadows of the cuts of the pre- 'ious arrangement.
 The military has a suggestion of distance. There are till some Parisian styles in Moscow opied from the books on modes iany of the women wear diamonds nd other jewelry, and sit in boxes uite proudly indeed, with their dope" books and glasses smoking he long, paper-stemmed cigarettes nd visiting and gossiping, even as hey did in the days before when here was nothing in particular to worry about
 With the aid of the light summer venings up here in the north the aces which are made up of IS or 20 vents, begin at 4 or 5 o'clock and ften it is nearly before the last ontest has been run off. Then the rowd breaks for the exits, dashes trough the babble of beggars, and tarts toward the city of golden lomed churches in automobiles, bu uto bus, tramway, droshky and by oot, just as the people did in the lays of old when Russia was in her ,rime.