1936 On the Continent

this if it were made plain that the tourist intended them for himself and not to sell them. And the question of an occasional drink—thought essential by some people, the writer among them? The only drink that is not dear for the tourist in Russia is vodka. Vodka costs about 10d. a glass—and a glass of vodka, if he is not accustomed to it, will get him quite a long way.
    I believe that I have given now, in a sketchy sort of way, most of the practical facts that it is advisable for a tourist to know before he goes to Russia. He can find extra and detailed information as to prices and routes in a dozen little booklets, garnished with good photographs, to be had for the asking at “Intourist” in Bush House, Kingsway, London, and at most travel agencies.
Theatre Prices
    While still on the subject of prices I should like to add that theatre tickets, paid for at the rate of 25 roubles to £1, come out fairly dear. They are, to the visiting Englishman, almost as dear as the most exclusive West End theatre prices. The best stalls at an ordinary Moscow theatre will cost 8s. or 10s. For the opera or the balletthey can go as high as £1. It follows from this that all people who are particularly interested in the Russian theatre—and it is magnificent—should book their tour during the special Theatre Festival, held each year in the first weeks of September—for on this occasion all theatre tickets are included in the price of the tour.
    And if at the end of this, dear reader, you should ask me “Why go to Russia at all?” I would say “Wait a minute and let me suggest reasons to you”—as I will do in the remaining pages. But even before this I would like to give you a supplementary reason. When travelling in any modern international train across Europe, it is quite impossible on that train not to meet people who are on their way to Russia or who have just come back from Russia. One cannot escape it. It is in the air. The most alive and interested minds from every other country in Europe have made it their business, of recent years, to go and see what is “up” in Russia. They may have seen a lot, or not seen a lot (it will have depended on their own energy very largely). They may have liked it, or they may not have liked it. But they have considered it their duty as alive and interested minds to go there and have a look for themselves. And you, reader, if you have a mind that you consider alive and interested, will also think that it is your duty to go there and have a look for yourself.
Opinions on Russia
    More good writing—and more nonsense—has been inspired by Russia than by any country in modern Europe.
    This is only to be expected. It is the newest experiment, and the only experiment of its kind, that is being carried out on the earth’s surface.
    The pages of some hundreds of contemporary newspapers have supplied the nonsense. In some cases it has been “good journalism”—something that should make the hair of its million readers stand on end with horror—always an agreeable sensation over the morning’s bacon. Sometimes it has been sheer lies and jugglery with facts—something that the news-editor of the paper in question knew to be untrue at the time of its publication, and that he blushed for (if news-editors have the power toblush) a few weeks afterwards. Sometimes it has been the considered expression of opinion of a person of the highest importance. (One does not forget that a world-famous English ex-Cabinet Minister recently gave it out as his opinion, in the public press, that the Russian people and the Russian Government were to be reckoned with as so many “baboons.” This must surely be the limit of polite assertiveness allowed of any public figure referring to the government of any nation not openly at War with his own.)
Read These
    There has also been some of the best, best-informed, sincerest, and most brilliant writing. I am thinking at the moment of the books of Maurice Hindus,
Red Bread, Humanity Uprooted, Broken Earth
, and the others. They are the work of a man who was born and brought up as a Russian farmer’s son, who migrated to America as a young man, who writes Russian and English with equal power; and is one of the best interpreters (because one of the most intelligent and best informed) of modern Russia to the Western world.
    I am thinking of the articles and books of Louis Fischer, correspondent in Moscow for the last fourteen years of the
New York Nation
, and