The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-08-13
By vERN SMITH


KRAsNOGORSK, U. S. S. R.
From Slavyansk on the main line of
the railroad a local train runs to
Krasnogorsk, 18 miles away. The
road over the rolling cultivated
steppe comes to a low range of
steep hills along which runs river,
bordered by pine forest Of fine big
straight trees, without underground.
Just at the edge of the forest, the
hills and the steppe, there Is a COL
lection of white buildings, and wall
with towers. That is the beginning
of the grounds, 1920 acres of the
Krasnogorsk Rest Home for workers
of the Don Basin. Forty-five thou
sand of them come here every year,
and half that number are coal MN
ers. Many miners, of course, go to
other rest homes, such as those
along the shores of the Black Sea
or in the Caucasus mountains. In
no case does the miner pay any
thing, instead he draws wages.
At the railway station the passen-
gers board a narrow gauge street
car line with cars pulled by gas
oline motored locomotive, operating
entirely within the grounds of the
rest home. The cars carry them
through the pine forest, past groups
of white bungalows each housing 40
to so or more resting workers. This
is the Forest Camp" of the Kras-
nogorsk Rest Home. The tramway
stops at the river bank, and the
workers are ferried over. In old
days there was a bridge here, but it
was destroyed in the civil war period
and is only now being rebuilt, to
open this year.
Even before the visitors reach the
river, they see high up on a hill to
the left the heroic statue of Artem,
first leader of the coal miners
union, after whom this rest home is
named. The statue is of concrete
and iron; the statue ITSELF, Artem
with his hand stretched out, is II
feet high, and stands on a base nine
feet high.
Off to the right, balancing the
statue in the picture, on part of the
same range of hills, is a group of
crags jutting up like fingers, and
held between them is little church,
the stone of the church blending
with the crags until it is difficult to
tell church from mountain rock.
That, said the old monks who used
to live here, is THE Church Born
out of the Mountain" miracle
which gave this whole region and
their convent the name of "Svya-
togorsk" or Saint Mountain"
Stretched along the river bank,
below the Church Born Out of the
Mountain" below Artem's statue,
smothered in a riot of roses, with
the graceful green of pine trees
fretting their white walls, is group
Of buildings, rectangular, with
arched windows, three stories high
most of them. These are the main
buildings of the old Svyatogorsk
monastery. These buildings were
the hotels for pilgrims and the
Cells" for the monks. Both are now
used to house the workers resting
here.
Don't be deceived by the word
cell" That's the official eccle-
siastical name for a very pleasant
room, about % feet by Is, and with
a ceiling Is feet high, at least one
window looking out over the roses.
When the workers captured the
monastery after sharp battle with
white guard machine gunners whom
the monks had posted in it, they
found that the monks had been liv-
ing in these cells with all manner of
modern conveniences, even electric
lights. All the workers had to do to
make it very suitable rest home
was to pull down the ikons.
In the background on a little
higher place in the hill, is big five
domed church with pale green walls;
it is now a theatre and clubhouse.
In the center of the cluster of white
buildings is another church which