The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-11-24
The BOlsheviks Rae an Old City,
But Build New One on the Ruins

take walk. He crosses the plat
form and comes to a terrace from
which cement steps lead down to
the street. He stops to look around.
His ewes meet the huge mass of a
light gray stone building which he
had never seen there before. It's
lines are straight, the architecture
modern and rather severe. 1t ex-
tends to the very end of the block.
Beyond it he can see more of such
buildings.
He looks down the street. Its
shape is not the same as it had
been. 1t is wide and straight, and
the old cobbles are gone, torn out
and replaced by smooth, shining
asphalt.
He turns to his right. That large
building towering above the square
with its Mauretanian-l features
and towerlets is certainly new, al
though its architecture is reminis-
cent of the Eastern tradition of old
Baku. He finds out soon that this
is the terminal of the electric rail-
way built in 1926 to connect the
city with the oil-fields and the new
workers towns and settlements
which had sprung up between the
city and the oil-fields.
He walks through unfamiliar well
paved streets. The sound of music
reaches his ears 1t is marching
music. He follows the sound and his
eyes meet another unfamiliar sight.
Young men and women, boys and
girls, all dressed in neat sport suits
o. various bright colors, white, blue,
green, red, brown, purple, march
/ to the strains of a lively tune. There
are blond Russians among the
marchers, and swarthy Tyurks, and
Armenians, and Georgians, and
Jews,
| He finds out that there is an
athletic meet being held in the city
today which happens to be a free
day. Popular athletic meets were
not a common occurrence in old
Baku. But that is not the point.
The point is that Tyurk women and
men march together, that the Tyurk
women walk in the parade not only
with their faces uncovered but even
/, their legs barred we'll above the
knees. The point is that Tyurks and
Armenians, and Russians, and Jews
march gaily together, and it seems
entirely natural-nobody seems to
wonder, and nobody seems to ex-
pect anything untoward,
| Further or he comes across an
! imposing building with the figures
26' prominently displayed en- its
facade. 1t is the palace CT culture
built to perpstuate the memory of
the twenty-six marty-ed Bolshevik
Comnissars of Baku. 1t faces a
newly laid cut park with sculptured
busts of some of the Comnissers
| Behind the houses, facing the
other side Of the park, still rise the
Gothic spires of thc old protestant
cathedral. He turns to the right,
in the direction Of the old main
shopping district. Here the sights
are more familiar. The buildings are
mostly the same as of old, the
streets as narrow and crooked, only
they are coated with asphalt, and
the old hcrse-d-a avn drcshkey5 have
practically vanished from them, the
bulk Of the traffic being made up
of automobiles.
At last there is something really
II familiar. something of the real
old Baku which apparently ezcacel
the destroying hands Of the Boz
shcviks-the cd fortress Of the
! Khans and within the Old Tyur,s
quarter: little narrow streets, 50
narrow that two people could hard
ly walk abreast along any of them
blind mud-walls hiding the interior