A NEARER MOSCOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 76, 30 March 1935, Page 15

A NEARER MOSCOW.

RAILWAY TO BE RE-OPENED. VIENNA, February 28. The U.S.S.R.-Rumanian Non-Aggres-sion Pact of last year and tho re-estab-lishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries have resulted in an important change in the railway system of Southern Europe. Emissaries of Rumania recently visited Moscow, where they conducted important negotiations with Chirzaaoff, who is the People's Commissar in charge of communication questions. The negotiations were recently brought to a successful conclusion, and as a result tho Tighina-Tiras-pol Bridge over the Dnieper will be reconstructed in the course of the coming year. For the last 17 years the Dniester river has formed a closed border between Soviet Russia and Rumania. Before the Great War there was free communication between Rumania and Southern Russia; after 1918 the hostilities between the two countries prevented any kind of connection. The big railway bridge across the Dniester, between Tigliina and Tiraspol, was blown up during the war, and with this the only practical route of communication had been cut. Sentries were posted on both banks, and refugees from Russia to Rumania, or vice-versa, attempting to cross (clandestinely) the river, either in a boat, or in winter across the ice, did so at the risk of their lives. This re-opening of the Dnieper route will not only connect Bucharest and Odessa on the Black Sea, but will give many countries, including Czecho-Slo-vakia,_ Austria, Hungary, Italy, Bulgaria, and even the South of France a shorter route" to Moscow than the present one, which runs via Berlin and Warsaw.