50 Years of the TAS 4 Industrialized Latvia advancing By BERT WHYTE RIGA — Latvia was once known as a land of butter and bacon. Today it has a highly de- veloped modern industry -whose output constitutes two-thirds of the republic’s gross national product. Recently a group of foreign journalists from four continents —North and South America, Europe and Asia—were priv- ileged to visit this small Baltic country, meet its leaders and workers, spend a day with its famed fishermen and tour its museums and vacation resorts. Let’s begin with a few words about Riga, the capital, a 700- year-old city in which the past and the present live harmonious- ly together. Having travelled fairly extensively in the Soviet Union, I long ago chose my favorite cities — Leningrad, Odessa, Thilisi,, Alma-Ata. Now I must add Riga to the list. Latvia is one of the most pros- perous of the USSR’s 15 repub- lics, and Riga, situated on the Daugava River, is its industrial heart, the centre for the elec- trical engineering, electronic and tool-making industries. We visited several of these modern plants, as well as the Exhibition of Economic Achievements, where samples of the republic’s products were on display—pre- cision tools, telephone equip- ment, diesel engines, mopeds, minibuses, leather’ goods, furs, furniture, perfumes, clothing, transistor sets (the best in the Soviet Union) and many, many other things. But one doesn’t fall in love with Riga because of its indus- trial plants. It’s the beauty of the Old Town, with its narrow, cobbled streets, medieval hous- es, towers, castles and cathe- drals—all right next door to the city’s main thoroughfare, Lenin Street, which whirls--you from ancient times into the latter half of the 20th century. Our hotel was in the Old Town—and on our first night in Riga we went for a_ stroll through the quiet, winding lit- tle streets, gazing at buildings decorated with coats-of-arms and quaint stone carvings. As far back as the 10th cen- tury Liv and Latvian tribes in- habited the lower reaches of the Daugava River, fished and bred cattle, but Riga itself was founded in 1201 by German cru- saders—the Knights of the Teu- tonic Order. If the cobblestones could talk, what a tale they would have to tell—of occupa- tion by the Poles in the 16th century and Swedes in the 17th, then a period of being incorpo- rated into tsarist Russia. Soviet power was established in 1919, but within a few months White Guards, assisted by foreign troops, seized Latvia and Riga became the capital of a bour- geois republic until. July 1940, when Soviet power was again proclaimed. In July 1941 fascist troops captured the city, nazi bombing destroyed many histo- ric buildings, thousands of pat- riotic citizens were shot and tortured to death in 23 concen- tration camps. More than 600,- 000 people lost their lives. We visited the site of Salas- pils concentration camp, where 100,000 people, including sev- eral thousand children, met their death at the hands of the Hitler- ites. The sombre Salaspils Me- morial Ensemble honors forever the memory of the victims of fascism. Where the _ gallows stood there is now a plaque with the inscription: “Here Man was executed be- cause he had committed no crime. “Here Man was executed be- cause he was a Man and be- eause he loved his country.” ae a8 A well-preserved leg of a mammoth is added to a unique exhibit in Yakut ASSR. Some 8,000 bones of 120 mammoths have been dug up in 1970 alone in what is described as “kitchen leftovers” from the stone age. Scientists conclude that this leg had been cut off with stone knives, buried in the permafrost and forgotten. The hair, 3-feet long at the shank, is«still'in excellent condition. ti Ges One morning after a hasty breakfast we boarded a bus and travelled 80 miles north along- side the Gulf of Riga to the fish- ing village of Roja. After a short talk with Mikhail Pesse, chairman of the Union of Fisher- men’s Collectives in the Latvian republic, we examined the plant where fish were smoked and canned. Majority of the work- ers are women,wives and daugh- ters of fishermen. We talked to several of them. Ilona Yakobiya, a _ pleasant woman who is: secretary of the party committee in the plant, has a 17-year work record. She was born and raised in the Izesis region, on the opposite side of Riga Gulf, graduated as a technologist from a_ special school in Riga, is married to a worker employed in the refrig- erator shop and has a 12-year- old son. The family lives well, in a three-room apartment with all modern conveniences. We were taken out on a small six-man trawler for a short trip. These trawlers operate mainly in Riga Gulf and the Baltic Sea: deepsea trawlers with a crew of 23 brave the At- lantic and fish off Newfound- land, Iceland, Greenland and Equatorial Africa. Their catches of mM i : wishing to build their own homes. The current 5-yeor } the building of over 210 million square metres of housing '" countryside. are transferred at sea to a mother ship which accompanies them on their long voyages — sometimes up to five months. Later we had a chance to take a dip in the sea, then sit around a fire with our fishermen hosts and enjoy eel shashlik downed with vodka and mugs of beer. Space runs out. There were visits to museums — including the Museum of the Latvian Red Riflemen, where we met five veterans who had been part of Lenin’s bodyguard in 1917. And we toured a textile plant, took a trip by hydrofoil down river | Workers’ houses on a Latvian state farm. The state makes a loans available at low rates and provides building materials t0 oe ‘ Plan fores® | to a resort village, had a fl) ly chat with members 0) if Writers’ Union, were enter | ed in a Palace of Cultul® tended press conferences met many leaders of the ¥ and government. What was our most pow’, impression gained from a) short visit to Latvia? The oy) clusion that the Latvian ie, beh as they prepare to celebrate | golden jubilee of the USS "al marching shoulder to aon with their brothers in all publics along the pright leading to communism. GDR writers serve principles of socialist ethics, morality — . By BEN SWANKEY Journalism in the German De- mocratic Republic is a vigorous and thriving profession, highly respected by both members of the profession and the public. On two trips to the GDR this year, I had the opportunity to meet with several journalists, examine GDR papers and mag- azines, and gather a good deal of interesting information about journalism in the GDR. All journalists in the GDR belong to an industrial union, the Printing and Paper Workers Union. Everyone working in any capacity in the production of a newspaper or magazine, from the editor-in-chief down, belongs to this union. But journalists also have a professional organization, the Union of German Journalists. This is limited to those whose major source of income is de- rived from journalism; further- more journalists may only call themselves such after they have graduated from a school of journalism or secured a univer- sity degree in the subject. The Union of German Journalists has 6,700 members. The average wage of a re- porter with no special qualifica- tions, is about 1000 marks a month (about $325 in Canadian funds), plus an annual bonus equalling a month’s salary and bonuses for special or meri- torious articles. (In making any comparison with this wage and that of Can- adian reporters, it should be borne in mind that the GDR has a comprehensive medicare scheme that covers just about everything including _ prescrip- tions, glasses, and dental care; that rents are low—about 5 to 10% of income; that meals are served at the place of work at very low prices; and that holi- days are available at first class resorts at extremely low rates. An extensive system of creches and kindergartens is also avail- able for working mothers.) The work week is 40 hours, based on a five-day week. The Union has its own cafes, bars and club rooms in major cities. The Union of German Journal- ists also operates its own train- ing school with a_ three-year course emphasizing practical work right on the job. The uni- versity course in Journalism at Karl Marx University in Leipzig lasts for four years, with the first year devoted to practical work. Applicants for university courses must first have com- pleted the normal 10 year poly- technical course (roughly equiv- alent to our public and high school), plus two more years in college courses that act as a transition to the University. More than 40 dailies are pub- lished in the GDR, the biggest being Neues Deutschland, the official organ of the Socialist Unity Party, which has a cir- culation exceeding one million. Almost all of the daily news- papers, as well as the weeklies and magazines, are owned and published by public organiza- tions such as political parties (of which there are five), the trade unions, and women, youth and cultural and sports organi- zations. Many of the big dailies which are centered in Berlin, publish seven days a week, and many of these papers also have local editions in the other major cities. The whole issue of most of the Berlin dailies is transmit-, ted by electronic means to other matcimossile ewsP? | major cities taneous publication advertising, Canadian standards), ditional source of revenue: . . ni reporting is sparse, 4 tof) used is mainly for edu nth purposes. Nor can you F about the personal lives 2 OI ple (divorce, etc.) 1m t f aot press; news is mainly | cial nature, matters political and economic rt5. ments, culture and spo In addition to the dailit, are scores of weekly paP es magazines, some exa 3 fit, which are Wochenpos sith paper; Freie Welt an! n if concerned mainly wit wo tional affairs; three_ «on magazines (Fur Dich, Sybille); and a satiric called Eulenspiegel. The outlook and journalists in the ¥" on set out in the constitu’ the Union. It is pledged andl velopment of socialist cip maintenance of the socialist ethics a” sour ag, It “works for truth ism which serves UP “all ant ; fot ‘| who fe les supports journalists ¢ # freedom of their P® echt aly ed a The Estonian P Tallinn has just OP ion library with half a ey on. science, techn?” netics and electroni@i’