Poor Roads Hamper Bureya Growth

Road building and the immediate development of all types of transport is the most important task in the building up of the Jewish autonomous region of Biro-Bidjan, Boris Sinelnikoff, engineer in charge of transport in Biro-Bidjan, declared here today in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “we must face the fact that in the matter of transport facilities, Biro-Bidjan is still in a primitive state. In order to win this rich but sparsely settled country, the region must be linked with the industrial centers of the Soviet Union. At present there are not even good communications between the centers in the Jewish region itself.

“The entire region,” the engineering chief said, “is cut through with a dense network of rivers. The Amul River alone runs through the region to a length of 350 kilometres, joining the Amur zone with Khavarovsk.

“The Tunguska and Bira Rivers, which are tributaries of the Amur, are also navigable, but like other rivers in the Jewish autonomous area there is no regular shipping for transporting passengers or freight.

“As far as motor roads are concerned the situation is even worse. More than 1,500 kilometres of motor roads have been built recently, but only eight kilometres are of real economic value. About 481 are of district value, 156 of regional value and 725 of village value.

“Most of the roads are only called that because people travel on them when they have no other alternative. Actually it is not possible for even an empty cart to travel over them. In the rainy season, people and horses sink up to their necks in the road.

“It is impossible to develop the region with such roads. In 1935 there must be an energetic drive to build new roads and to put the old roads in first class condition.