6 SEPTEMBER 1935, Page 28

THE TRAVELLER'S RUSSIA

By Burton -Holmes

Mr. Burton Holmes is now about to begin his forty-second consecutive lecturing season' in -the .United States ; and in order to gather material for it, he went to the U.S.S.R., taking his courage in both hands with that intrepidity for which his race and profession_ have become justly renowned. It is perhaps typical that he. knew no word of Russian, that lie should not have known a cinema from a coal-mine, hut. that he should have received 'a • 25 per cent. reduction in his fares from the ollicial Soviet Tourist Agetry. Tit!, Travelle,esi Russia '(Putiutin,' 10s. Od .) is a sUperticiaesription o l de of his three weeks' hardships on the well-beaten I rail through. Moscow, Leningrad and the r 1111CA. would be an understatement to describe this book as the worst on this stIticct,this year ; it. must be among the I lace most trivial hooks ever written. It. is profusely, illustrated by the familiar Russian type of photographs, .the kinst' commonplace of ,)Itielt have been supplied by the Soviet