Fourth Jewish Region Opened in Soviet Union: Freidorf in Crimea.

Freidorf, the fourth Jewish autonomous region in the Soviet Union, which is situated in the Crimea, has been inaugurated.

The opening of the Freidorf Jewish Region follows on the establishment of the Jewish Regions in Kalinindorf, in Zaporozhie, and in Krivoyrog. This takes no account of Bureya, in Siberia, which is also spoken of as a Jewish Region in process, but which has not been proclaimed as such because the work of Jewish settlement has not proceeded as rapidly as was intended.

The population of Freidorf is given as about 26,000 souls, with a total area of 264,000 hectares, or 2,460 square kilometers. Under the present scale of settlement, the area should be settled by 6,450 families, or about 32,000 souls. The Jewish population in the Region at present is only about 9,000.

The recent allocation of new tracts of land and improvements in the partition of the old tracts has given a possibility of building large villages and collective farms, and there is to be an intensification of agriculture which will bring with it an increase of the village population. At present, it is stated, agriculture in the Freidorf region is still at a low level. According to the 1930 report of the Tax Department, only 97,682 hectares were sown out of the total area of 246,000 hectares in the Region. A movement has been started already, however, to increase considerably the area of land under cultivation, and to intensify the cattle-breeding activity. Sheep-breeding is said to offer particularly large scope in the Region. There are now in the Region 11,042 horses, 6,958 cattle, 2,524 pigs, and 47,983 sheep, of which the collective farms have 3,614 horses, 584 cattle, 9,352 sheep, and 99 pigs. Dairy-farming and sheep-breeding are believed to provide the best opportunities of development in the Freidorf Region, and there are also excellent prospects for vegetable gardening and for plantations.

The proclamation of Jewish regions in the Crimea, similar to the Jewish regions in the Ukraine became possible in July 1929, it was foreshadowed in the J.T.A. Bulletin at the time, in consequence of a decision adopted then by the Crimean Commissariat of Lands, granting the Government Commission for Jewish Land Settlement (Comzet) the right to exchange land with the Government agricultural farm settlements situated between the Jewish colonies. Previously the establishment of Jewish Regions in the Crimea had been impossible, because the colonies were split up by other land lying between them. The new decision opened up the road to a process of linking the colonies into continuous stretches, which can become self-administrating Jewish Regions. The measure was long urged on the Crimean Government by the Comzet. The new grant of 95,000 hectares of land for Jewish colonisation made in February 1929 provided for the first time sufficient territory for the purpose of exchange.