From: Petrofka, Bessarabia
25 December 1912
Today, we Russians, are celebrating the holy feast of Christmas (7 January) and yesterday, on Monday (6 January), you dear friends in America and Canada had the feast of Epiphany (the three wise men). Please believe dear fellow countrymen and also you our relatives, friends and acquaintances that on this day lots and lots are being talked about in circles of friends and acquaintances. Also by mourning parents sitting at the hearth, thinking about the children who are living in the New World and who so to speak are buried alive.
How many tears are rolling down the cheeks of mothers who have not seen their child in many years! Many a mother and many a father would happily give years of their lives and their worldly goods to once again see their child in their lifetime! But many a mother and many a father have to let their child be buried alive in the far away America and Canada, without ever having their dearest wish fulfilled to see their child again in this lifetime. Until all of them go to the land where there are no more tears to be shed and the heart will no longer hurt!
But we have one strong consolation, an effective and untiring connection between parents and children, siblings and friends and that is the Staats-Anzeiger. Through the numerous correspondences from the readers living here and across the infinite ocean, it is the connection between parents and children, siblings and friends even if it is just in ones mind. A thousand times “thank you” for that!
That is why you Russians in America and Canada should support the Staats-Anzeiger without exception in its worthy mission. Don’t be greedy when it comes to helping and supporting such a worthwhile cause since it is to your own advantage and benefit. Every Russian in the New World should read the Staats-Anzeiger and pay for it in advance. Not only that, but he should also correspond no matter where he lives. Furthermore, all of our fellow countrymen in the New World, who perhaps still have parents siblings or friends in the old homeland, should pay for the Staats-Anzeiger for at least one person in the old homeland if the means will not allow it to send more than one newspaper. Through such a gift, the spiritual connection between here and there will be strengthened more and more and the few rubles spent this way couldn’t have been spent better. Dear friends remember that!
Every father and every mother who nowadays is doing better and whose children are living in the New World would today think totally different than at the time of the farewell of their children to leave for the far away America. Certainly such parents would say today; “Better to let the son serve as a soldier in Russia than saying good bye and never see him again.” But what is done is done and can’t be changed today, if at all!
The weather, with the exception of today, has been rainy and is interrupted on and off by mild frosts overnight.
The grain trade and traffic has been nonexistent up to today, and we can hardly remember ever having had such a bad fall season before, even though we had a medium harvest. The export of grain to the nearby villages is very weak if one can even talk about such export at all. The reason for that is probably that the Russian wheat from this year’s harvest was of poor quality and low in weight. As one reads in magazines, the American wheat this year is better than the Russian wheat and not more expensive. That is probably why the countries that need wheat are buying the product from overseas and we are stuck with ours.
Especially small is the wheat harvest this year in the Cherson region. There the exporters have an even harder time than the ones in Bessarabia to sell their wheat. If on top of this the wheat harvest in Argentina is as plentiful as one is hearing from there, then the Russian wheat merchants who have a large supply will suffer a big loss by spring. For good quality wheat, of which there is little available, the mills around here still pay 1 ruble 5 kopeks to 1 ruble 10 kopeks, while the regular kind only brings 85 to 90 kopeks. It is much better with the barley. The barley is an article of speculation in the commerce because the prices fluctuate. Sometimes they increase. Sometimes they decrease. There is no demand for rye in the commerce. Old Welsh corn is also low in price namely 60 to 65 kopeks per pud (16.38 kg) of kernel. New corn on the cob goes for 20 kopeks per pound. Oats are doing much better, since it is sold to Bulgaria in large quantities.
I am sending a greeting to the readers of this paper.
Romuald Dirk