Miss Annie Gwen Jones’ Passport.
On the reverse side is written: “It is essential to swear that we are all members of the English Protestant Church. Dissenters are not allowed to have passports for Russia. Mr Hughes had to state that I belonged to the English Church, which is not true you know. This is quite a new thing. Last time we had no nonsense of the kind.”
Much has been said about the treatment of the Jews, they are the true victims of harsh laws, have no freedom or justice and are compelled to swear allegiance to the hand that punishes them. They were very numerous in Hugheffka and possessed two very large synagogues; their connection with us was very great as they almost had all the business of the community. They were unjustly said to be the cause of riots, which were not of rare occurrence. Their usual call to prayer is the triple knock and then they all repair to the synagogue. Sometimes the knock acts as a warning. They are watched and suspected by the Russians, so much are they hated that in one Russian City, Odessa, I believe a notice to this effect was posted up at a bathing establishment, “No dogs or Jews are allowed to bathe here”.
I have to make a few remarks about their language coinage customs and a few other things. I shall touch on them briefly. The coinage is simpler than our coinage, you have to remember only Kopek and Rouble, the Kopek is about 1/4d and 100 kopeks are equal to one paper rouble, which is about 2/- 6d. Perhaps it would be interesting to know the various commodities, which were obtained from the large towns and brought to our place by means of a conveyance drawn by teams of oxen yoked together as in ancient times. Beef was very cheap, procured for 2d a pound, but the beef was so tough, ‘Proverbial leather’ was soft and sweet compared to it. Mutton was a trifle better. Turkeys and Geese could be had feathers and all for 1/-. Fowls for 6d, fish sold for 6 - 7 kopeks a pound, sturgeon, salmon, lampreys, eels, whitebait. Butter was fairly cheap, but rather scarce, the Russians do not care for butter. In several noblemen’s houses we were offered tea with bread made of rye sweetened with tiny sweets and no butter at all. Russians generally drink their tea in glass tumblers with glass saucers. No household is without its Samovar. The tea is very pale, but highly and deliciously flavoured, the addition of a slice of lemon vastly improves it. Some like their tea sweetened with jam not sugar, it is well known that Russia pays the best price for China Tea and thus gets the pick of the market, it comes overland not by sea.
Our dainties were very expensive. Sardines were 2/- or so a tin which would cost 5 pence at home, caviar, if fresh is also rather dear, it consists of the roes of sturgeon, dried and salted, it is a favourite meal with the Russians. Caviar is spread on black bread with a glass or two of vodka. A little meal, called a Zakouska, is generally partaken of before dinner and never fails to give a good appetite. It is always spread on a side table before the usual dinner begins and is considered an indispensable thing as a preliminary to a feast of a great many courses. Wines of all sorts are found n the table of the upper classes. Another favourite dish is the suckling pig and you generally had one in every house at Easter time. Fruit is very cheap indeed, especially grapes, melons and peaches, game is plentiful, especially partridge and pheasant.
Dress material, when it was your good fortune to come across any, was exorbitant in price. Often would Tartars, Greeks, Jews and Russians travel from place to place with their stock of goods, silk, lace etc. Russian lace is very beautiful indeed, in some villages the peasants are all occupied in making lace by hand.
There is one most peculiar custom the Russians have and on a certain Saints day they all congregate at a cemetery, take their Samovars and cakes and have a meal on the gravestones of their departed friends and relatives, it is their kindness that prompts them to do that they think that the spirits come to join them in their feasting.
The dominant population of Russia is Slavonic, the Slays are divided into two branches, one branch in Poland, Bohemia and Moravia and the other composed of Bulgarians, Serbians and two or three small tribes known as Croatians and Slovaks. Even at present anyone more or less acquainted with modern Russian has no difficulty in understanding a Pole, Bulgarian or Serbian. The language used 1000 years ago is still used in the service of the Russo-Greek church, is of course as unintelligible to the Russians now as Anglo-Saxon would be to the English. I have said nothing about poetry and prose; the names of Tolstoy, Pushkin, Turgenieff, Lermostoff, Gogul, Gorky are of European fame.
I have touched on some points, which interested me during my stay in South Russia. I left Hughesovka just a week before the Cholera riot made its appearance there, taking as its victims several of nay Russian friends, but a fortnight before the terrible Cholera riots at Hughesoffka reported in the London Papers during which a great part of the village was burnt, the most valuable machinery of the works destroyed and numerous lives lost. This riot was found to have been instigated by the Nihilists.
I have always advocated friendship with the Russians for in spite of their faults they have excellent possibilities and I have always felt that we Britishers could be the means of enlightening them and bringing happiness and prosperity to them.
There is a great want in rural Russia of doctors, hospitals and nurses; the death rate is very high. The poor quality and insufficient food prepared the way for disease which is further prompted by the want of cleanliness, lack of sanitation and medical help. At the best of times the peasant is poorly fed and liable to skin trouble, asthma, typhoid and smallpox. When scarcity prevails they die in their thousands of hunger and a special form of disease which follows in the wake of famine.
Because the houses were made of wood, fires were frequent in the summer, so a watchtower was built. A watchman was always on duty to report a fire, Mr Hughes organised a fire brigade, the majority of the members of which were English and Welsh.
Treatment of the Jews
Unbelievable in the 20th Century, the persecution of the Jews was unusually active during the reign of Alexander III (1881-1894). in 1886/7 the Czar signed edicts which gave the Minister of Education the power of restricting the number of Jewish pupils in schools of all grades. Jews were at the same time forbidden to establish schools of their own. From 1887-1890 they were harried from their homes and in 1890 Grand Duke Serge was appointed Governor of Moscow and the expulsion of 700 Jews was thought necessary to purify the place for his arrival. Deprived of nearly every means of livelihood and crowded in the cities of the ?Pal many died of starvation.
Certain trades were permitted but these were never authoratively defined and the limits of exemption were frequently and arbitrarily contracted. Those who were enrolled by artisans to pursue the vocation of watchmakers were expelled because they had sold watch keys. Tailors were expelled because they did not manufacture the buttons attached on the clothes sold. The Russian persecution of the Jews, stands apart from other anti-Semitic movements on account of its unparalleled magnitude and ferocity and also because it is the direct act of a Government deliberately and systematically, remorselessly seeking to reduce to utter misery about 4 and half million of its own subjects.
No Jew is allowed to hold any official office; he must serve in the army but can never rise from the ranks. He cannot be employed in the railways or work in their construction.
Mrs Edgar Jones, in later years on the balcony at Eryl, Barry, South Wales.