In the morning Radek, the two conductors who had charge
of the wagons and I sat down together to breakfast and had
a very merry meal, they providing cheese and bread and I a
tin of corned beef providently sent out from home by the
Manchester Guardian. We cooked up some coffee on a
little spirit stove, which, in a neat basket together with plates,
knives, forks, etc. (now almost unobtainable in Russia) had been
a parting present from the German Spartacists to Radek when
he was released from prison in Berlin and allowed to leave Germany.


The morning was bright and clear, and we had an excellent
view of Jaroslavl when we drove from the station to the
town, which is a mile or so off the line of the railway. The
sun poured down on the white snow, on the barges still
frozen into the Volga River, and on the gilt and painted
domes and cupolas of the town. Many of the buildings had
been destroyed during the rising artificially provoked in July,
19l8, and its subsequent suppression. More damage was
done then than was necessary, because the town was
recaptured by troops which had been deserted by most of
their officers, and therefore hammered away with artillery
without any very definite plan of attack. The more
important of the damaged buildings, such as the waterworks
and the power station, have been repaired, the tramway was
working, and, after Moscow, the town seemed clean, but
plenty of ruins remained as memorials of that wanton and
unjustifiable piece of folly which, it was supposed, would be
the signal for a general rising.