Monday, Jan. 05, 1925

Faculty Drowned

Novorossiisk University, one of the largest in Southern Russia, received orders from Leningrad. It was expensive to the Soviet Government. Times were hard. Novorossiisk could have no more subsidies. It must close its doors. The faculty would proceed at once to Odessa University and swell the teaching ranks there.

The faculty of Novorossiisk University consisted of 29 professors. In a body, they took passage on a Black Sea steamer for themselves and all their families. Then there was bustling, packing, leave-taking at Novorossiisk, and, one day last week, the whole band embarked.

Away puffed the little steamer, out of Novorossiisk harbor into the West. After 200 miles of steaming, the dark mountains of Crimea loomed to starboard. There lay Balaclava, where the British charged; there Sevastapol, where they used to ship tons of grain from the eastern Steppes. The little steamer heeled off northerly, past Cape Tarkhan, toward the Ukraine, for Odessa.

A great storm arose. Heaven tipped crazily, the long seas towered and swept by. Huddled below decks, the faculty of Novorossiisk University and their families cried out prayers as they were dashed back and forth across the saloon. Ashore there was famine; here were rocks ahead and stark fear on the faces of the crew.

A woman shrieked, seeing the portholes burst. The vessel groaned, feeling downward for her grave on the cold seafloor. The Black Sea flung its folding mountains on and on toward land and the winter gale hissed a dirge for the works of man.