"From Spasskoe I drove across to the little village of Dolguinko, where I found a part of the population living in holes dug in the earth. Towards the end of last autumn, one half of the village was burned to the ground. The work of rebuilding had scarcely commenced when winter set in, and those peasants who were not able to lay beams and branches over their partially-built huts and thus make a roof, dug holes in the ground in which they are now living with their families. "To reach these burrows it was necessary to follow a long passage cut in the snow, at the end of which was a hole through which the visitor was supposed to let himself, legs first, and then steady his descent by catching at the snow till he felt the ground beneath his feet. I did all this, and am not certain whether I was not more astonished at my safe arrival than the occupants of the hole were to see me. "Beyond the difficulties of entrance and exit the hole is no darker than an ordinary hut. But a more horribly insanitary place of abode for human {135} beings it would be hard to find. As could only be expected, it was very damp, and the occupants were condemned to stand and sit in several inches of mud, and to support the drippings of the snow melted by the heat of their fire. However they manage to live with insufficient nutriment amid such surroundings I cannot imagine. The man in one of these burrows that I visited was making wooden boots, for which he could earn a penny a pair. If he worked very hard he could make two pairs a day. "On returning to Novo Alexandrofka, I looked over the books of the district of which these villages form part. It comprises twenty-five villages, with a total of 60,000 inhabitants. How many of these are relieved by the authorities cannot be said, but M. Novikoff's Committee has supplemented the efforts of the Government by feeding 10,436 persons during the month of January. Each one of these 10,436 persons was the recipient of twenty-five pounds of flour. "According to the inventories made of the possessions of every inhabitant of the district, the number of destitute, unprovided for by Government relief, will increase by more than 1000 a month, and will reach 18,000 by June. The committee has already distributed 650,000 pounds of flour since its institution. As many Britons have aided this work by funds sent to Madame Olga Novikoff, it will interest them to know what is doing. "In the village of Novo Alexandrofka no one is in receipt of relief. Thanks to M. Novikoff, who has endowed it with elementary, secondary, and adult {136} schools, it is a particularly happy village, and counts 800 teetotalers in a population of 900 persons.