WAR DAMAGE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 October 1943, Page 4

WAR DAMAGE

IN INVADED RUSSIAN TERRITORY. WOMEN ASSISTING IN WORK OF RECONSTRUCTION. (By I. Zvavich in “Soviet War News.) The Moscow Academy of Communal Economics is responsible for recording war damage sustained by communal buildings in the U.S.S.R. They are being helped by an army of housewives who work under the guidance of building experts in the housing sections of the city Soviets. < These women make the rounds of the buildings and record all the relevant details. The reports of the housewife inspectors are carefully scrutinised and checked by the housing sections of the Soviets, and then the cost of immediate partial, or complete rebuilding is assessed. After a district has been surveyed in this way. the Soviet sets itself to accumulate building materials. Materials from buildings blitzed beyond repair are carefully salvaged. A not-so-badly damaged house may be repaired with materials taken from its totally demolished neighbour. 'This is a valuable saving of transport. The labour problem is acute in war time. The city Soviets are overcoming it in various ways. In Stalingrad, for example, individual initiative is widely used —the workers of a tractor plant are provided with materials to build new houses, which will be their own property. This has helped to draw the wives of workers, and other members 1 of their families, into the extensive restoration programme. The Academy of Architecture has a committee at work on the designing of temporary dwellings for settlements, and on the application of new building materials. The Moscow House of Scientists will shortly open an exhibition of various model houses, designed spccll ally for Moscow and the. Moscow region. The Moscow Soviet is calling a special conference of builders to discuss restoration problems.

The devastated areas cannot be rebuilt solely by the inhabitants who lived through the invasion, or who have returned to their native places. It is a matter for the entire country. This does not mean only financial aid through State subsidies. It means actual help on the job. Thus the lumberjacks of the Moscow, Yaroslav and Kalinin regions give part of their working time above schedule to supply their countrymen with building materials.