Territory Seen as Land of Future; 35,000 Families to be Settled at Once, at 2,000 Roubles per Family (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
The Bureya region which the Comzet, the governmental department for settling Jews on land, is asking the government to allocate for Jewish settlement, comprises two million hectares, an area equal to entire Crimea or the whole of Palestine in its historic frontiers, states “Der Emess,” Communist daily, commenting on the proposal. Its total population is 27.000 or one to every square kilometer, as compared with 35 persons to every square kilometer in Crimea and 40 or 50 in Palestine.
The area has a fertile plain of 1,400,000 hectares, growing wheat, rice, beans tobacco and grapes, the paper continues. There are also mountains in this region with thick forests on them providing raw materials for industry.
An expert commission of the Comzet conducted an investigation of the territory. The climate is good, the investigation showed, there being no malaria or other diseases in the region. There are no present claimants to the land which is now unoccupied. Because of the railway which was laid since the revolution, the far east is the land of the future.
The region could hold a million Jews. The report of the commission showed that the cost of settlement would be 2,000 roubles per family, and it is possible to settle at once 35,000 families in the region, which could be developed into a Jewish region within the Soviet Union, the “Emess” declares.
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.
