CITY UNDISMAYED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 October 1943, Page 4

CITY UNDISMAYED

MOSCOW IN WAR TIME BUSY ROUND OF WORK & PREPARATION. CHILDREN GETTING SPECIAL CARE. Moscow is humming with energy (Vasily Pronin, chairman of the Moscow Soviet, wrote not long ago in “Soviet War News”). The front is only about 120 miles away, but our great factories work day and night without ceasing. The schools opened on time. The theatres and cinemas are as busy as ever. Every citizen lives a full, eager life, devoted to the task of serving the Red Army. Many Moscow factories have been awarded the travelling Red Banners of the State Defence Committee. Men who left the factory bench for the front line have been replaced by thenwives, sisters and mothers, who have taken only a few months to learn skilled jobs which before the war it would have taken them a couple of years to acquire. Thousands of women and girls in the Stalin Factory and other machine-building factories have become highly-skilled lathe workers and cutters within three or four months. We are now preparing for the second winter of war. Last year the Germans laid waste the Moscow Coal Basin. Not only has it been restored—it is turning out between 2o and 30 per cent more coal than it did before the war.

' Our power stations, factories and institutions are well stocked up with fuel. Tens of thousands of our people have gone out to the forests to cut firewood for our schools, hospitals, creches and dwelling houses. They have already stacked several million cubic feet of timber. Hundreds of vessels tie up each day at the wharves with loads of timber. We shall be far warmer this winter than last. -i

We are repairing damaged houses and flats and making them thoroughly weather-tight. Everybody is helping. Our transport system, too, is making ready in good time for the winter season.

The air defences and A.R.P. system are being continually improved. Voluntary fire brigades, decontamination squads and first aid detachments are in training in every building. We are looking after the families of our Red Army men. During the past few months alone the Government has allotted them 8,500,000 roubles, as well as fuel and other assistance. Over 2,000 well-equipped flats have been provided for them. Five months ago we opened 25 special restaurants for delicate children of front line fighters. They feed 20,000 boys and girls. Two hundred and fifty new kindergartens and 76 creches have recently been opened. Moscow works, lives and studies. We are going on the assumption that there will be another Nazi offensive (this was written in October last) and we arc getting ready now to defeat it. We have plenty of food stored away, flour and meat, cereals and fats. We shall, of course, have to economise, but we shall not starve. It is a big job to feed a city in a state of siege with a population of 2.800,000, but it will be done. Stalingrad inspires us and we shall see them through.