In one of Jules Verne’s novels, a Frenchman from Marseilles says: “I am twice French, because I am from Marseilles.”
Imitating him, we could say: “We are twice Russian, because we are from Kiev – the mother of Russian cities, because Moscow and Petrograd are colonies on Kiev, and not vice versa”.
Petrograd. American diplomatic and engineering commissions have arrived to Petrograd almost simultaneously.
Good, honest books – the best instruments of culture – have all but completely disappeared from the book market. A number of slanderous and dirty newspapers have sprung up encouraging people to treat one another with hostility and hate, supposedly while trying to answer the question of who is responsible for the collapse of Russia.
There was another incredibly humiliating event awaiting us that day. The commission arrived from Sevastopol and took us all to all to a kind of court at Svitsky house, where each of us individually had to answer questions relating to the searches. To tell the truth, I was so outraged by this new, and unexpectedly vile trick, that as I entered the room and saw them sitting behind the long table like judges, ready to question me like some thief or murderer, I was shaking with indignation and fury. But, fortunately, Sandro was with me. See more
I’m living in Yessentuki, where I came to be treated. I feel rather awful.