Quite late in the night our host tried to drive us home, but halfway there his car ran out of gasoline. He got out and stopped the first motorist who came by. There was a quick exchange of Russian. He gave the man a hundred roubles, and we got in and were driven home by this stranger. And we found that this can nearly always be done. Almost any car becomes a taxi late at night, for a very high price. This is very fortunate, for there are practically no regular taxis on run. The taxis usually cover a route and take the car full. You must say where you are going, and the taxi driver will tell you whether he is going in that direction. They operate a little like streetcars.

In addition to all the decoration a great deal of new equipment was coming out in celebration of the anniversary. Big new electric streetcars, trackless streetcars, were put on the streets for this celebration. The Ziss automobile plant released many beautiful new cars, which were almost exclusively put to the use of the big delegations from foreign countries.

Although it was only September 6, it was becoming very cold in Moscow. Our room was freezing, and the heat would not be turned on for a month. We wore our overcoats when we were not in bed. The other correspondents in the Metropole Hotel were unpacking their electric heaters which had been put away for the summer.

Almost at dawn on the day of the celebration Capa was out raging through the streets with his cameras. He had a Russian cameraman with him now to facilitate his movements about the city and to explain to policemen that he was all right. And in Red Square he had a militia man assigned to him to make things easy and to stop any unpleasantness. He photographed buildings, and displays, and crowds, and faces, and groups of trudging people, and he was as happy as it is possible for him to be when he is working.

In many streets little sidewalk restaurants were set up—one directly across from our hotel—two little tables, with white cloths on them, and vases of flowers, and a big samovar, and a glassed-in display counter for little sandwiches (open-face sandwiches with sausage and cheese), jars of pickles, and small pears and apples, all for sale.

It was a brilliant cold day. The elephants from the circus paraded through the streets, preceded by clowns. There was not to be any military parade on this day, but there was a big show scheduled for the stadium, and to that we went in the afternoon.

It was a show of mass formations of factory workers in brilliant costumes. They did group calisthenics and marches. They made figures on the field. There were races, some for women and some for men, competitions in shot-putting and in volley ball. There was a showing of dancing horses, beautifully trained horses, which waltzed, and polkaed, and bowed, and pirouetted.