Nuns, Princesses, Coin-Hoarders

Nuns, Princesses, Coin-Hoarders

Quiet sitters at the back of their Soviet union hall were five women whom Ogpu (Soviet secret police) pounced on last week, arrested. All were charged with falsifying their identity papers, accused of being former nuns masquerading as proletarians. Two of them, whilom Mother Superior Belayeva and Sister Danilova (both of the suppressed Convent of Ekaterinburg), were further accused of being former princesses.-- To their homes the Ogpu frog-marched the protesting nuns, ransacked, found 800 silver ruble pieces, 250 rubles in Tsarist gold coins, "a panful of copper coins" and 515 carats of assorted precious stones. In reporting the women's arrest as "coin-hoarders," famed Besbozhnik ("The Atheist") ominously stated last week that twelve priests have been arrested for coin-hoarding in recent months, that twelve other persons have been shot.

-- Princes and princesses were numerous in Tsarist Russia. As Oxford's scholarly Walter Alison Phillips wrote before the War: "The Russian title of 'prince' (knyaz) implies undoubted descent from the great reigning houses of Russia, Poland and Lithuania; but the title descends to all male children, none of whom is entitled to represent it par excellence. There may be three or four hundred princes bearing the same distinguished name; of these some may be great nobles, but others are not seldom found in quite humble capacities--waiters or droshky-drivers. The title in itself.has little social value." A sound rule for title-hunting U. S. women: "In the Russian, nothing less than a Grand Duke."

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