Читать книгу The Red Reign. The True Story of an Adventurous Year in Russia онлайн

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Besides the demolished foreign quarters of Tiflis, there were evidences a-plenty of riot and revolt in all sections of the town; whole blocks of houses sometimes with windows broken, as a result of a recent bomb; telegraph lines down; traffic interrupted; streets torn up and day by day reports came in of clashes between the peoples, and sometimes between the populace and the authorities, and never a day without murder or assassination.

The streets of the town were never safe. A bomb was liable to drop in the vicinity of any official at any time, and robbery was a commonplace of the night. In Tiflis I found a state of actual and continuous guerilla war. Nothing spectacular or dramatic happened, but every day some one was killed, a building wrecked, a consignment of government money stolen. Political arrests were hourly scenes. Workmen were taken from their work; private citizens were snatched from their homes; newspapers that appeared one day were suppressed the next; officials who had to move from place to place were accompanied by heavy escorts. The atmosphere was electric with unrest. Tiflis quivers and cowers through miserable days and hideous nights—all because Russia’s civil policy is as it is, often in open violation of the usual customs of nations and of humanity. Tiflis, olden capital of ancient Georgia, Tiflis the lovely, the beautiful, the fair—I found a city of inquisition, of fire and blood, of despair. Yet through it all we—my officers and I—were established in the comfortable Hotel de Londres. At night we were merry, and oblivious to everything about us. Sometimes we went to a café chantant called the Bellvue, where lovely Georgian girls sang brisk American songs (done into Russian) and painted Armenian maidens danced languorous, lascivious dances....