James Houghteling. Project1917

03.03.17

Until 2:30, I worked and wrote letters at the office without even stopping for lunch. G. and I saw Prince off for Petrograd at 3:00 and then lunched at Filipoff's restaurant and bakery near the Post Office. At that hour there was still a long bread-line outside and only a small section counted out by a policeman was allowed to enter at one time. While we sat at lunch, a soldier in line inside the shop started a noisy argument with the cashier; suddenly from the restaurant part strode an officer and said one word; the soldier clapped his heels together and saluted, and we heard no more, not even a murmur, from him.

In a few moments the supply of bread gave out and about fifty persons, inside and out, were told they could get none. Such vociferous despair as was uttered by some women at the head of the line I never heard; those further back must have been desperate already for they slunk away without a word.

We supplemented our lunch with hot chocolate at Siou's tea shop on the Kuznetsky Most. There we met Griffin Barry, just in from Kazan, a pleasant chap in riding breeches, puttees and goloshes. I offered him are fuge for the night in my room as he couldn't get anything at any hotel. I was much interested in his description of the unhappy situation of a young English woman married to an elderly German who is interned in Kazan and is sick and cranky. The wife is of course free to travel but refuses to leave her husband, and no one in the town will have any thing to do with her. One of the little tragedies of this war.

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Petrograd, Russian Empire

28.02.17

I walked to the office this morning with Randolph. He told me of a rumour that the opening of the Duma was interfered with and that a general strike has been started in Petrograd.

Graham Taylor and Hamilton dined with me. We hear that the Duma opened with wild speeches; that armored motor-cars and platoons of Cossacks patrolled the Nevsky. This may be idle talk; everything is placid as a millpond here.

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27.02.17

An uneventful day at the office. Lunched at the Polish restaurant. Russian lesson at 5:30. Dined at the Hermitage.

While I was at the American Consulate, two Austrian military prisoners came in; they had been left behind by their escort and wanted nothing so much as to rejoin their own squad on its way to the prison camp. They were pitiful little shrimps. The consulate messenger refused to convoy them out to military headquarters, saying he was afraid for his life at the latter place. After some telephoning, the consul gave them a letter of identification and sent them out without escort. I sincerely pity them if they wander off the straight path from the consulate to the headquarters.

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26.02.17

We called at noon on Gregory Alexeieff, secretary of the General Committee of the Union of Zemstvos; I presented a letter of introduction from Samuel Harper of the University of Chicago and we had a most satisfactory interview with him. He advises me to read Vinogradoff's "Self-Government of Russia" and promised to send other pamphlets on the war-work of the Union. He will then introduce me to various members of his committee. I expressed particular interest in the financial and industrial end.

The Zemstvo Union has a great stone building six or eight stories high on the Pekrovka, a principal business street; every inch of it is occupied and it is a place to gladden the heart of an American. The atmosphere is absolutely different from that musty file-an-application- and-wait-three-weeks air which oppresses one in the huge ministry buildings in Petrograd. The overhead conveyors for "passing the buck" are entirely lacking. The Union is taking care of all the wounded, is feeding and clothing the armies, operating tanneries, shoe-shops and commisaries, working with and directing the Peasant Co-operative Societies; in short, it is doing three-fourths of the work of the moribund War Office. What is more, it is doing it efficiently and honestly.

The good work of the Union is a thorn in the side of the bureaucracy, as the comparison of results is too discreditable to the government. So the latter interferes on every pretext. A few months ago the Military Governor of Moscow forbade all public meetings of the Union and dissolved a convention of Zemstvo presidents which was discussing the care of the wounded, the boot-supply, and other treasonable subjects. This stupid interference has deprived the government of the support of the last among the landed gentry. It is on a par with tlie recent outrageous arrest of the labor members of the War Industry Committee * in Petrogad.

At Mikhailoff's fur store this evening, I talked with a Belgian who was in Moscow in 1905. He described to me theriots, barricades and miscellaneous murder of that exciting time. The government picked out its most unruly regiments of Cossacks to quell the disturbance, and they shot at everything insight. A man standing next to my informant in a side street leaned out to look up the Tverskaya and exposed his head and one hand; his hand was drilled clean through with a bullet. Lucky it wasn’t his head! The word ''Cossack" originally meant bandit and these fellows live up to their name. Is shouldn't be surprised if the revolution which is coming will begin with a massacre of the Cossacks comparable only to that of the Janissaries, or to Peter the Great's slaughter of the Strelsi.

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25.02.17

Tea this afternoon at the S—s'. Mrs. S. proves to be a most delightful Russian woman, very highly connected. She and her sister showed us beautiful boyar costumes and jewellery, and promised to go shopping with us later when we were ready to buy mementos.

G. and I dined at the Praga and went to theCharity Bazaar at the Savoy Theatre. We found our hostess of last night presiding at a very tawdry booth, but herself quite a landmark in another great Russian headdress of pearls. She received us with warmth and annexed some of our money in an unscientific gamble called Krasnaya Karta. She asked us to take her to supper in a few minutes. A sapreliminary we went over and had our horoscopes read by that round-faced gypsy, Miss Natasha who told me a very good fortune, including the fact that the affairs of the heart were going well and that the greatest success in that line would attend a long voyage I should soon take. (Mind you, she doesn't know I'm planning to marry.) Then Mme.M. joined us and we went to the supper room. It was jammed and we couldn't get a table. She wandered around visiting and shaking hands with people, and finally settled down at the Governor General's table and forgot all about us. Her name is Russian for Frost, and there is something in a name this time. G. and I executed a quiet ''sneak" for home and bed.

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24.02.17

This is a holiday because the Russian Lent begins Monday.

I went out this morning to ski in Sokolniki Park with a party mainly American, of which Mrs. McGowan and her charming daughters were the moving spirits.

In the evening G. and I went to a dance at the big house beyond the Red Gates, and had a most amusing time. On arriving we found our hostess' younger sister in command, supported by her fat step-brother, a lieutenant at home for a few days on leave. In one corner of the elaborately furnished salon sat the two attractive Misses Smith surrounded by all theEnglish-speakingmen; in another corner a group of Russian-speaking damsels chatted with an awkward-looking officer and an equally awkward-looking civilian; several unattached men hovered about restlessly. No one had a notion what to do. The younger sister giggled charmingly; we admired the paintings, some of them the handiwork of our hostess, and talked desultorily. So an hourpassed. Then our hostess came in from the Charity Bazaar, clad in a brilliant peasant costume; with her came two of her friends dressed as gypsy fortune-tellers—dark-haired dashing creatures,—a pretty blond girl, and a funny active youngster with a little yellow beard. Things immediately woke up. Dancing began, all waltzes of course. The Smith girls waltz very well, Mme. M. moderately well, the rest quite badly. I took a great liking to one of the gypsies, whose first name was Natasha, and went out to supper with her. She talked French charmingly but no English. Beyond me two elderly men in sack-suits sat on either side of the hostess, and across the table was a bearded uncle-like fat man with celluloid cuffs. (In the provinces celluloid linen is a sign of nobility.) We walked home at 2 a. m. with the enthusiastic little bearded chap. It was very cold and there were no cars running, nor any isvoshchiks to be had.

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