The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-11-20
By Vern Smith

MOSCOW, Nov. i9.--Several hun
dred people were gathered in the
street called Chinese Prospect"
street that runs from Dzheriinsky
Square more or less southerly until
it reaches the banks of the Moscow
River. Nearly all the way along
one side of the street stretched,
when first came to Moscow and
up until a few months ago, a solid
brick wall about twenty feet high
and twelve or fifteen feet thick. 1t
had battlements along the top, and
narrow arched gateways twenty or
thirty feet wide at a few points
along it. That was the Chinese
WALL" and it had been blocking
traffic in Moscow since the six
tenth century.
What the crowd saw, though, was
a mass of rubbish and brick, with
hundreds of men, women and youth
swarming over it with iron bars
picking out the good brick. Just
opposite from where they stood a
half dozen sturdy young fellows on
top of a low place in the wall we're
carefully hammering out the bricks
on one side of one of these arched
gateways. A militiaman good ma
turedly urged the crowd back from
the vicinity of the arch. The sturdy
youths shouted jests to friends in
the crowd. The tightly wedged
bricks yielded slowly, but they
yielded Suddenly, without warn
ing crack, tons of brick dropped
straight down and smashed like an
explosion, and a faint dust arose.
The arch had collapsed.
Most of the crowd cheered. A
few, some very old and some very
young, sighed.
Ancient Landmark Gone
"An ancient Landmark gone" said
one old fellow. One of the tradi-
tons of old Moscow destroyed" said
someone else.
"a rotten tradition" said a
worker, as he turned to catch the
street car that would take him to
an afternoon shift somewhere.
Now we'll have room to move
about in" was the general COM
ment. A few days later, most of
the rubbish is cleared away. Chi
nese Prospect" is merged with New
Square" Street, the street that used
to run along parallel with the wall
but just inside it, and where the
wall stood is clean, solid asphalt
The traditionists are appeased
and archaeologists are satisfied with
the stretches of wall that remain
along the river front and in othel
places where it does not interfere
with traffic. Even the best of the
old gateways, that over Tretyako'
Prospect, is saved, and has been re.
painted while the rest of the wal
came down. But the gaudy church
that buttressed the corner of TIT
wall where it turned from Dzher
jinsky Ploschad to run up towarC
the Kremlin, is gone. 1t had M
architectural or historic value, ant
| Old llOb OdNC IL. IN
time has long gone by when j.;
church was saved merely because i
was a church. Public opinion, in
stead of demanding that "sacret
edifices" be untouched, is now mucl
inclined to object that there are to-
many churches left for the church
going population to use anyway
That is true. I went myself las
Sunday to one near the Red Square
and saw how a bare half dozel
worshippers wandered from on
ikon to another, each kissing tn
same square inch of glass over tn
saints feet.
City of 100000
Moscow is g city Of about 4,000,0 0
bitants, that is, a city mucl
the size of Chicago. Like Chicago
it is a big industrial city railroad
center, when the Volga-M Moscow
canal is finished it will be a ship
ping center for water traffic lik,