Khortiza, March 1, 1920

All is dark again! Our hope is gone. Between those brother colonists and us a fighting front line has been established. The armies of General Wrangel and the armies of the Bolsheviks continue their fight there. This is civil war.

We are living in complete isolation. The trains do not come, the mail does not arrive, the telegraph does not work. By the way, there is no technical possibility of wire communication, for the Ukrainian Anarchists—the anarchism did not grow in the North—have cut down the poles and wire and used them for some other purposes. Communication by horses is now the only possibility. Here at this place, however, all these good animals are taken away. When there has been left a miserable horse somewhere, it is used to cultivate, somehow, the soil of some little field. In the fall the fields could not be prepared because no power was available, and we lived under the oppressing domination of the Anarchists.

It seems that travelling has become more dangerous here than in the innermost parts of Africa. The day before yesterday three men of this settlement ventured on a journey to a distant place. Yesterday at noon the carter and the young married couple were found dead by the wayside. They had gone only fifteen miles. Surely they have been killed because of their horses and the wagon.