Beginning with the middle of March the people in Balta and the surrounding country were discussing them openly.
When the Jews of that town made their apprehensions known to the local police commissioner, they received from him an evasive reply.

In view of the fact that the Jewish population of Balta was three times as large as the Christian, it would not have been difficult for the Jews to organize some sort of self-defence.

But they knew that such an organization was strictly forbidden by the Government, and, realizing the consequences, they had to confine themselves to a secret agreement entered into by a few families to stand up for one another in the hour of distress.

On the second day of the Russian Easter, corresponding to the seventh day of the Jewish festival, on March 29, the pogrom began, surpassing by the savagery of the mob and the criminal conduct of the authorities all the bacchanalia of 1881.

A contemporary observer, basing his statements on the results of a special investigation, gives the following account of the events at Balta: At the beginning of the pogrom, the Jews got together and forced a band of rioters to draw back and seek shelter in the building of the fire department.