The question of Jewish colonization in Bira Bidjan continues to occupy considerable attention in Soviet Russia, in the press, at meetings and special conferences of interested parties and organizations.
Suggestions are being discussed to call together an All-Russian Conference of the Comzet and Ozet workers with a view to considering new methods of colonization in Bira Bidjan, particularly in view of the report submitted by a special investigating commission sent by the Government to Bira Bidjan.
The Commission consisted of five Jews and five non-Jews, of whom seven were workers, two clerks, and one an artisan. Five were Communists and five were non-party members. The ten members of the Commission were chosen from various towns in Russia and represented a wide range of interests.
The official report points out the growth of the town of Bira Bidjan (previously Tichonkoye), where a two-story house has been erected to serve as a post office. There have also been built a district hospital, premises for the accommodation of the Executive Committee, and a large electrical station is now nearing completion.
Houses and temporary shelters have been put up for all the immigrants, and workshops for the manufacture of standard houses are in full operation, the report states.
At the same time the report points out a number of mistakes and failures in the work committed by various organizations with detrimental results for the immigrants.
Among the immigrants from Ukraine and White Russia, the report adds, are a large number of invalids and people incapable of physical work.
Hygienic conditions at the immigrant distribution centre continue to be unsatisfactory. No chairs, tables, or washing basins are available in the immigrant shelters. The married and unmarried people are compelled to sleep in the same rooms, which are unheated, without doors, and windows broken.
The shop attached to the immigrant centre sells powder, cream and neckties, but no clothes, tobacco, pencils or paper.
Frequently the immigrants’ luggage goes astray and is never found. A number of important districts are without any medical advice. The supply of food and building materials continues to be most unsatisfactory.
Nevertheless, the report comes to the optimistic conclusion that all these mistakes can and will be remedied, and indicates ways and means of doing so.
The report concludes by saying that Bira Bidjan has the possibilities of a new province which can be quickly developed, and that the second five-year plan for Bira Bidjan will be utilized to turn Bira Bidjan into a metallurgical base for the entire Far East and a most important industrial centre.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
