The Reconstruction of Moscow

: Thus, in respect to housing, the workers of old Moscow found themselves in the same class with the declassed elements. They occupied, as a rule, rooms which in no wise differed fundamentally from the doss- ho-uses of the city "underworld," or from the hovels of Ihe Khitrov Market. \ According to the figures of the 1912 census Moscow had 24,500 rooms of this type, occupied by 327,000 people, or more than 20 per cent of the entire 1,600,000 popula- tion of the city. An average of ten persons to a room lived in Moscow's basement and semi-basement one-room apartments; in one-room apartments above- street level — six to a room, and in two-room apartments — three to a room. From these figures, characteristic of any other capitalist city, we see, that density of population grows in proportion to the growth of poverty. Before the Revolution only 3 per cent of the workers lived within the Moscow Boulevard Circle known as the '"A" Circle (the "A" street-car runs along this circle) , that is, in the centre of the city, in its best apartments and houses, and within the Sadovoye Circle ("B")— about 5 per cent. , In old Moscow 88.2 per cent of the houses were con- structed of wood, 91.2 per cent were one and two-storeyed. Here is one of numerous characterizations of the level of "municipal facilities" in old Moscow. "The courtyards of the houses are usually very dirty and are paved only in very rare instances. Cess- pools and garbage bins are rarely cleaned; investiga- tors have noted many cases where the cesspools were absolutely overflowing, exuding vfleodpurs, and where there was garbage; scattered about the courtyard. Neither tlie courtyards nor the staircases are illumin-

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