"That," he said, "is one of the plans which, in spite of the war, has gone a very long way towards completion.We have built the station in the Ryezan Government, on the Shadul peat mosses, about 110 versts from Moscow.Before the end of May that station should be actually at work.(It was completed, opened and partially destroyed by a gigantic fire.) Another station at Kashira in the TulaGovernment (on the Oka), using the small coal produced in the Moscow coalfields, will be at work before the autumn.This year similar stations are being built at Ivano-Voznesensk and at Nijni-Novgorod.Also, with a view to making the most economic use of what we already possess, we have finished both in Petrograd and in Moscow a general unification of all the private power-stations, which now supply their current to a single main cable.Similar unification is nearly finished at Tula and at Kostroma.The big water-power station on the rapids of the Volkhov is finished in so far as land construction goes, but we can proceed no further until we have obtained the turbines, which we hope to get from abroad.As you know, we are basing our plans in general on the assumption that in course of time we shall supply the whole of Russian industry with electricity, of which we also hope to make great use in agriculture.That, of course, will take a great number of years."[Nothing could have been much more artificial than the industrial geography of old Russia.The caprice of history had planted great industrial centers literally at the greatest possible distance from the sources of their raw materials.There was Moscow bringing its coal from Donetz, and Petrograd, still further away, having to eke out a living by importing coal from England.The difficulty of transport alone must have forced the Russians to consider how they could do away with such anomalies.Their main idea is that the transport of coal in a modern State is an almost inexcusable barbarism.They have set themselves, these ragged engineers, working in rooms which they can hardly keep above freezing- point and walking home through the snow in boots without soles, no less a task than the electrification of the whole of Russia.There is a State Committee presided over by an extraordinary optimist called Krzhizhanovsky, entrusted by the Supreme Council of Public Economyand Commissariat of Agriculture with the working out of a general plan.This Committee includes, besides a number of well-known practical engineers, Professors Latsinsky, Klassen, Dreier, Alexandrov, Tcharnovsky, Dend and Pavlov.They are investigating the water power available in different districts in Russia, thepossibilities of using turf, and a dozen similar questions including, perhaps not the least important, investigation to discover where they can do most with least dependence on help from abroad.]
Considering the question of the import of machinery from abroad, I asked him whether in existing conditions of transport Russia was actually in a position to export the raw materials with which alone the Russians could hope to buy what they want.He said:
