FREEZING ALL THE YEAR

Patea Mail, Volume LIII, 7 March 1932, Page 4

FREEZING ALL THE YEAR

PEOPLE WHO WISH TO LIVE IN RUSSIA. ‘•'IDEAL COLONY. '’ “If you want to go to. the district adjoining the second coldest town in the world, then by all means go to the Soviet settlement of Biro-Bidzhan, ,J This was the considered opinion of one of the few experts on Siberia who are o be found in Johannesburg, says the ‘Sunday Times. ’ A recent announcement that a number of enthusiastic young local Jews, now in Union, were about to start a trek for a new Bolshevik settlement in the Amur district of Asiatic Russia, prompted an investigation into the position there. “God forbid, ” commented a distinguished Russian traveller, now in the city, when asked whether he personally would like to make his home at Biro-Bidzhan. “How any person in his senses can leave the 'beautiful climate and environment of South Africa in order to settle in the Amur region is only to be explained by the fact that ho docs not know what ho is doing. “I can understand, a young Jew deciding to migrate to those consider able colonics reserved by the Soviet for his community in the Crimea, but this trek to the Amur is sheer madness. ’ ’

According to a letter published in a Band newspaper lately and purporting to come from a man acquainted with Biro-Bidzhan, "the climate is one of the finest in the world."

This does not tally with the information gathered by the ‘Sunday Times. ’ . '

"A winter lasting seven months } a soil frozen hard to a depth of two feet or more—if these arc symptoms of the ‘fine climate,' the young South African Jews arc easily satisfied," the Siberian authority said. The mean annual temperature at Blagovcstchensk is 32.1 degrees F., or exactly freezing point." Until the record was beaten by that of Verhoyansk in the more northerly part of the country, the lowest temperature ever recorded in any regular meteorological observing station wmfound at the city of Blagovcstchensk, which is the nearest centre of importance to Biro-Bidzhan. In this town the thermometer (using alcohol be cause mercury is apt to freeze) once showed 100 degrees Fahrenheit ot frost!"

In an ordinary winter 40 to 50 do grecs below freezing point is nothing unusual throughout this Amur territory, which, oddly enough, is far from the Arctic. It lies along the Chinese border and only a few hundred miles from the shores of the Pacific.

The river Amur (or Amor), which skirts its southern boundary, is of gigantic dimensions —2700 miles long and in places as broad as the Mississippi, Ono of its larger tributaries is the Bureya, which is able to carry steamers in the summer, and the Bidzhan, which is not so important.

From the two latter streams the Soviet settlement has taken its name. Owing to the fact that there arc incredibly bad roads and that much of the territory is bog, rivers, especially in winter, and the principal means of travel. When they are frozen sledge transport becomes feasible, but, to counter-balance this, there arc the appalling Siberian frosts. The summers are pleasant, temperatures ranging about 60 and 70 degrees in the day time. On the other hand they are very dry, and drought conditions prevail almost till August, when autumn sets in.

Gnats, mosquitoes, and other plagues of insects make great areas in this part of the world uninhabitable and only to be penetrated by travellers equipped with gauze masks and nets. Once a person has made his homo with the Bolsheviks return voyage is almost out of the question. Considering that all labour should bo used locally the Soviets make emigration from their empire very nearly impossible.