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|e Xehe2eAuse 520 _ page two má areas. The first in age, but not in importance is the Leha areay where gold has been mined since Cz@rist times, It is still kept operating, in fact its output has slightly increased, By far the most important area is a vast stretch of Far Ugstem Siberia, with as Center the City of Magadan, This area, the famed "Dalstroi® is directly administered by the MGB, Macadan itself is an ultramoder harbour city on the northem part of the Sea of @khotsk. It has a population of nearly 50.000, fine harbour installations, modern repaireshops, a first class airport, and ship-repairing installations, It is a highly electrified town, most of its buil~ dings are modern by Russian stendards, since the whole city is a new creation, It still expands and will soon reach a population of nearly 100.000¢ It is there that the sold-operations, which are many hundred miles away are centrally directed, It is throuch the harbour also, that the workers are shipped in and out, that supplie . arrive and that the ores are partly processed and partly shipped away, by air or water, The supplies of food also come partly through Magadan, The gold mining area itself extends on the Upper mamm Kolyma, The main mining goes on between Srednikan and Balychane Much gold is elso mined in the area of Shir fed Ahh Chincandzha at the foot of the Ploskogore, The third area of active explor&&éisnn is on the lower Kolyma, close to where it reaches the East Siberian Sea. Operations there are centered on Karetovayas zi Besides these fully operating areas, the Soviets now hope to have found and are actively prospecting an area which should be of great wealth in gold : the Chukotsii Poluostrov on the Bering Straight. | Onerations are based there on the settlement cf Velen. This is quite a primitive thing still, but according to best available intelli~ gence operations should have started this yeer, If they give enough results large developments of the area should be expected, It is impossible to say at present, how many people are working om the difterent gold-mining projects, especially since there are three differznt classes of people in the field : the free workers, that is to say local people and miners who work on the current mie hing wages, ‘hen there are the forced workers, who are Directed by the Ministry of Interior, and are, without exception, in these ecémps for political reasons, The number of “these workers ou. the gold projects is 290,000 at present, according to best available intel= ligence, It must be nevertheless pointed out thet this number couid vary by a few ten thouéands one way or the other, since so many @ifierent projects are side by side in the area, the} it is very dufficult exactly to establish which worker work on which projett in a permanent way, Fineliy a third group id forced Chinese Labours These Chinese have been furnished to Russia b Mao's regime. They recrive very small salaries, of which they ge the very, bare living Mininum, while the milk is put at the dispdsial of the Chinese Go x res ‘ Pa a ő FE ip . ú 4 A § : / jú i
