RUSSIA’S GOLD CLAIM

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 July 1934, Page 11

RUSSIA’S GOLD CLAIM

“TO OVERHAUL TRANSVAAL”

MOSCOW, June 7

M. Serebrovski, head of the State Gold Trust, boasts, in an interview published in the “Isvestia,” that the Soviet output of gold, which last year surpassed that of the United States and Canada combined, will soon overhaul the output of the Transvaal and “take the world’s first place.” Rising steadily from last June onwards, the output in December was, he says, 97 per cent, more than in Decembei, 1932. He admits, however, that the Soviet industry can build only ten gold dredgers a year. Power stations must also be built, and the problem of transporting adequate supplies to the mining camps over Immense distances northwards must be solved before new big-scale operations can be undertaken. For instance, the sole means of access to the Aldan goldfield is down the Irtish River, which is open for only a few weeks in the year, a distance of 2,900 miles from Irkutsk. That is why the Soviet Government recently issued a decree encouraging “Artels” (ancient co-operative groups), and even individual goldminers, to start prospecting again, and reworking deposits abandoned by the State. Local authorities are forbidden to mobilise these mep for other jobs. A lot more “paydirt” has been discovered in the Lena region, especially at Homolho, where, it is stated, “literally tens of tons of gold are obtainable by washing.” But the new trust has had “great difficulties in restoring the Lena Goldfields organisation, which was entirely wrecked by the prey-bird-mismanagement of the former concessionaires.” Of the gold quartz regions, M. Serebrovski adds, Kazakstan is already the j greatest, and will some day be the > biggest goldfield in Russia.