1936 On the Continent

as he would be in any other capital in Europe.
    By the by, do I hear someone asking “Isn’t this rather perilous?—to go walking Russian towns and streets on one’s own?” I suppose it is true that the legend of the essential “dangerousness” of Russia dies very hard. Those who have not yet been there may be reassured on this important point: the visitor is as safe in a Russian town or a Russian village as he would be in his own country. Those who have already been there will need no reassuring.
Prices
    The question of expense is an important one. The days of the Arnold Bennett visit and the “hundreds of pounds” necessary for the journey are gone years ago. But this sort of news percolates slowly; and it may probably still astonish some people to hear that the Russian trip—in regard to the distance to be covered and the value given—is as cheap as or cheaper than any trip in Europe.
    I say this quite advisedly, having travelled several times right across and up and down Europe, and having been five times to Russia.
    The price arranged by the authorities is an inclusive price, and ranges from £1 a day (in a category that is reasonably comfortable, and that I have often travelled in myself without experiencing unendurable hardship); through a category at £1 15s. a day, which included a fair amount of luxury; up to a category at £3 a day, which is
grande luxe
to a degree only necessary for sybarites.
    By this means of the inclusive price the visitor can know exactly what his holiday is going to cost him before he leaves London. If he is a hard-up student and wants to go for three weeks, he will put down his £21 before he leaves London, and can know that for that money he will be taken from London to Leningrad by the Soviet boat and that his boat-fare and the cost of his meals are included; that he can stay in a Leningrad hotel for as long a proportion of his holiday as he wants, and that his hotel bill and his meals are included; that he can then go the overnight journey to Moscow when he wishes, and that his train-fare is included; he can stay in Moscow, again with hotels and meals included; he can come back, when his time is up, to Leningrad and so by boat to London—and he can know that for all this time (unless for drink if he drinks, and tobacco if he smokes) he need not have put his hand in his pocket for a further sixpence.
Absolutely Inclusive
    His Soviet
visa
will have been included in the price, and so will his conveyance about Leningrad and Moscow and their neighbourhoods in trams, charabancs or motorcars; likewise the entrance-fees to museums and galleries, and the services of guides and interpreters for the greater part of the day. (The guides are usually at his service in the mornings and evenings. If he is insatiable and wants extra attention in the afternoons, he will have to pay extra for it. In point of fact he will probably be glad enough to stroll about alone.)
    If he is doing it in a more expensive way and with greater luxury in his hotels, meals and train-accommodation, he can pay his £1 15s. a day before he leaves London—and again know that the price is equally inclusive. If he is one of the pampered darlings of the world and wants to do it on the grand scale, he can pay his £3, and have suites of rooms to himself in his hotel, and generally feel like a millionaire. (Incidentally I have eaten some of the best meals of my life in the great Moscow and Leningrad hotels—and not always when I was travelling in the most expensive category.)
    Now if these prices seem vaguely expensive to the inexperienced traveller, I would like him to compare themwith certain other prices he would have to pay in Europe outside Russia if he were travelling anything like equivalent distances. In any continental holiday, if large distances have to be covered, the actual train fares and meals eaten in train restaurant-cars take up a very large proportion of the whole cost. (In the Russian journey, the student will notice that his inclusive £1 a day covers about 2,000 miles of sea-travel between London and Leningrad and back, and about 600 miles of train-journey between Leningrad and Moscow and back.)
A Personal Instance
    I will give a personal instance of what I mean. A few summers ago I was spending a holiday in Russia, on the basis of the £1 15s.-a-day category. For this I had been to Leningrad and Moscow, then a tremendous journey right down to the south of Russia to bathe in the Crimean