The Jewish Autonomous Region is located in the Far East. In the west
it borders with the Amur region, in the north and east with the
Khabarovsk Territory. In the south, the state border with China runs
along the Amur River.
The Jewish Autonomous Region is one of the
strangest Russian regions, as can be seen from its name. In Russia there
are national republics, there are autonomous okrugs, there are
territories, there are simply regions, but the autonomous region is the
only one, and its autonomy is very conditional and comes down to its own
national language, which no one speaks today, and even representatives
of the titular nation in There is almost no republic left. Perhaps these
facts are enough to captivate an inquisitive traveler, because you will
not find anything like this either in Russia or abroad. Others may be
interested in natural attractions: in a small region by Far Eastern
standards, there are mountains, swamps, and beautiful rivers, although,
frankly, from the point of view of nature, the Jewish Autonomous Okrug
is not the most interesting part of the Far East.
Russian, Yiddish possible.
At railway stations and on
administrative buildings, the traveler will see signs in two languages.
By plane
There are no operating passenger airports in the region.
The nearest major airport is in Khabarovsk. An alternative may be
Blagoveshchensk, but getting from there is less convenient.
By
train
The Trans-Siberian Railway runs through the region with very
long-distance trains such as Moscow-Vladivostok and shorter ones, such
as Vladivostok-Blagoveshchensk. Only 5-6 trains per day in each
direction. With their help, go to the west, to Chita, Irkutsk and
further throughout Siberia, as well as towards the BAM - to Tynda,
Neryungri, Chegdomyn. To the east, trains go to Khabarovsk or
Vladivostok.
By bus
The night bus Khabarovsk-Blagoveshchensk
passes through Birobidzhan and Obluchye, there are also several buses to
Birobidzhan from Khabarovsk. There is no international bus service. If
you are coming from China, you will first have to cross the border
somehow, and then use local transport.
By car
The M58 Amur
federal highway runs through the region, connecting the region with the
Khabarovsk Territory in the east and the Amur Region in the west.
The border with China runs along the Amur River, where there are
three border crossings. All of them have international status, but are
not equipped with bridges, and therefore operate in a seasonal mode:
ferries in summer, ice crossings in winter, the border is closed in the
off-season.
Pashkovo (Obluchye) - Jiayin
Amurzet - Lobey
Nizhneleninskoe (Leninskoe) – Tongjiang
The operating mode of the
crossings is tied to the schedule of ferries and crossings. They seem to
operate in a fairly relaxed manner, with only a few flights a day. There
are also weekends when there is no transport across the border at all.
On the ship
With the exception of ferry crossings, there is no
passenger service within the borders of the Jewish Autonomous Region
along the Amur River. A “water bus” runs from Khabarovsk to the village
of Vladimirovka, Jewish Autonomous Region, but only summer residents go
there.
By train
Passenger traffic is entirely dependent on the
Trans-Siberian Railway. On the side line to Leninskoe there is only
freight traffic.
Electric trains: 3 times a day on the
Khabarovsk-Birobidzhan section and twice a day from Birobidzhan to
Obluchye.
Long-distance trains: always stop in Birobidzhan and
Obluchye, other stations can pass without stopping. In any case, only
trains with shared carriages are justified for short distance travel. In
the Far East, these are slow, most often mail and luggage trains, making
stops wherever possible: No. 325 Khabarovsk-Neryungri, No. 385
Vladivostok-Blagoveshchensk and No. 663 Khabarovsk-Chegdomyn.
By
bus
From Birobidzhan buses go to all districts of the region; there
are practically no other routes.
From the point of view of food, the Jewish Autonomous Okrug is almost
no different from other regions of the Far East: the only difference is
that the standard of living here is not very high, so you can’t count on
expensive and beautiful restaurants - but inexpensive canteens are
ubiquitous, and many of them are not so bad as it seems at first glance.
In addition to the obvious Russian/Russian cuisine, there are Chinese
and, less often, Korean restaurants, but there are few of them in
Birobidzhan compared to Vladivostok and even Khabarovsk.
If you
are looking for traditional Jewish dishes in the Jewish Autonomous
Region, then most likely you are wasting your time: in Birobidzhan there
are two restaurants with conventionally Jewish cuisine, but in both
cases it only complements the main menu and is certainly not kosher, and
dishes like hummus and It is better to try falafel in Israel or
somewhere else in the Middle East.
History of the Jewish Autonomous Region — events of the creation,
development and existence of the Jewish Autonomous Region of the USSR
and subsequently the Russian Federation.
The development of the
Amur region by Russians began in the mid-17th century. After the October
Revolution, preparations for the creation of a Jewish national autonomy
on this territory began in the late 1920s. By the Decree of the
All-Russian Central Executive Committee of May 7, 1934, the
Biro-Bidzhansky National District received the status of an autonomous
Jewish national region.
The uniqueness of the Jewish Autonomous
Region as a national-territorial entity is that it was created for
settlers who went there during the years of Soviet power, on a territory
that had never before been a place of compact residence of this people.
The share of the titular nation in it in 2010 was 1% and continues to
decline.
Neolithic sites of the Malyshev culture on the territory of the
Jewish Autonomous Region date back to the 6th millennium - the second
half of the 4th millennium BC. e., Kondon culture - 3rd millennium BC.
The early Iron Age includes sites of the Uril (end of the 2nd millennium
- 7th century BC) and Poltsev (6th century BC - 4th century AD)
cultures.
Since ancient times, the territory of the Amur region
was inhabited by Paleo-Asian, Tungus-Manchu, and Mongolian tribes.
By the middle of the 1st millennium, the Mohe tribes (Nayfeld
group), belonging to the Tungus-Manchu language group, settled in the
Amur region. In 628-926, this territory was the northern outskirts of
the Bohai state. After its defeat by the Liao Empire, these lands were
populated by the Jurchen tribes, who laid the foundation for the Jin
state. After the Mongol conquests, the peoples of the Amur region
remained in the shadow of historical events until the arrival of Russian
explorers in the mid-17th century.
On June 15, 1643, "by the decree of the sovereign tsar and grand duke
Mikhail Fyodorovich of all Rus'," an expedition of 139 Cossacks was sent
from Yakutsk, led by the written head Vasily Poyarkov. In the 17th
century, 3,860 Daurs, 1,240 arable Tungus, and 1,260 reindeer Tungus
lived in the Amur region. Poyarkov noted in his report the natural
wealth of the region: "those lands are populated and rich in grain and
sable, and there is a lot of all kinds of animals, and those rivers are
rich in fish, and the sovereign's military men in that land will not be
short of grain in anything." The campaigns of Yerofey Khabarov in
1649-1652 also played an important role. The first settlement on the
territory of the future Jewish Autonomous Region was Kosogorsky
Fortress, founded in 1656 by Onufriy Stepanov. A number of settlements
were founded by Nikifor Chernigovskiy.
The territory of today's
Jewish Autonomous Region was part of the Albazin Voivodeship
(1651-1689). According to Vladimir Kabuzan, in the 1680s there were
about 800 Russian peasants, Cossacks and industrialists in the Amur
region. Later, for about 150 years, the left bank of the Amur was under
the control of the Qing Empire under the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689.
In the mid-19th century, active development of these lands began, in
which the position of the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia Nikolai
Muravyov played a major role. In 1851, the Transbaikal Region was formed
with its center in Chita. In 1853-1856, military rafting trips along the
Amur were organized, during which the Transbaikal Cossacks began
settling the region and its economic development. In 1856, they set up
Ust-Sungariysky and Khingansky (Bureinsky) posts, and in 1857-1860, the
currently existing settlements were founded - Pashkovo, Radde,
Pompeyevka, Puzino, Ekaterino-Nikolskoye, Mikhailo-Semyonovskoye,
Voskresenovka, Ventselevo, Soyuznoye, Golovino. In 1863, they moved
north, creating a number of villages, including Samara, Babstovo,
Bidzhan, and Kukelevo.
Military rafting along the Amur and the
creation of a network of settlements with a permanent population made it
possible to secure this territory for Russia. In 1858, the Aigun Treaty
was concluded, and in 1860, the Beijing Treaty. These documents
officially secured the border line between Russia and China. The
territory that went to Russia received the administrative name
"Priamursky Krai".
On December 20 (December 8, old style), 1858,
the Amur Region was created. By the decree of the emperor of December
29, 1858, the Amur Cossack Host was created. It included the Amur
Cavalry Cossack Brigade consisting of two regiments and the Amur Foot
Cossack Battalion. In the territory occupied by the battalion, where the
autonomous region was later located, in 1869 there were 24 villages with
1,014 households and a population of 5,661 people.
The life of
the first Russian settlers in this area was hard: a harsh climate, free
work for the state by the tsar's decree, attacks by gangs of Chinese
robbers. The first educational institution in the region (a Cossack
school in the village of Radde) opened in 1860. In the 1870s, the flow
of resettlement to the Amur region increased due to the government's
permission for private development of gold mines.
On June 16,
1884, the State Council established the Amur Governorate General,
consisting of the Transbaikal, Amur, Primorsky regions and Sakhalin
Island. The governor general was appointed by the emperor, and the
military governors who headed the regions were subordinate to him. Most
of the territory of the future region was part of the Amur District of
the Amur Region, formed in 1884. In 1899, two dioceses of the Russian
Orthodox Church were created in the Far East. The current territory of
the Jewish Autonomous Region became part of the Blagoveshchensk-Amur
Diocese. By the early 1920s, there were 24 Orthodox churches and field
churches and 20 chapels on the territory of today's Jewish Autonomous
Region. All of them were destroyed by 1936.
The report of the
military governor of the Amur Region, Lieutenant General Konstantin
Gribsky for 1900 stated:
... The Amur Cossack army, occupying the
coastal strip of the river. The Amur from the Pokrovskaya village to the
Zabelovsky settlement (in the territory of the future autonomy - from
the Storozhevsky settlement to the Zabelovsky settlement) was divided
into three sections, the third section included the village districts of
the Amur foot Cossack battalion:
Ekaterino-Nikolsky - 7 villages, 576
households, 4476 people;
Mikhailo-Semenovsky - 14 villages, 624
households, 4908 people;
Raddevsky - 4 villages, 148 households, 1157
people.
The construction of the Amur railway had a significant
impact on the settlement of the Amur region. The labor of convicts and
workers who arrived from the central provinces of Russia was also used
in its construction. In 1912, the Tikhonkaya station was built - the
future capital of the region and the city of Birobidzhan. In the same
year, the first industrial enterprise, Tunguska Sawmill No. 8, opened,
which supplied lumber for the construction of the Trans-Siberian
Railway.
During the Civil War from 1918 to 1921, military
operations were conducted mainly outside the territory of today's Jewish
Autonomous Region. But from May 1921 to October 1922, the Amur Region
became the scene of violent clashes between the Reds and the Whites.
Japanese and American interventionists also operated here. The fighting
on the territory of the region ended in the summer of 1922 with the
victory of the Reds and the establishment of Soviet power. The most
famous event of this period and one of the largest battles of the final
stage of the Civil War was the Battle of Volochayevka on February 5-14,
1922. However, battles with Cossack detachments that had gone to China
and occasionally crossed the Amur continued until 1927 and occasionally
even until 1929.
There is no reliable information about Jews in this area before the
second half of the 18th century. If they lived there, they were
extremely few in number and ended up there by accident. The first Jewish
communities emerged in Siberia at the beginning of the 19th century.
Most Siberian Jews were exiles and their descendants, and later retired
cantonists joined them. The first archival documents about Jews in the
Far East date back to 1875, there were only a few dozen people. However,
these figures did not include Jews living there illegally.
In the
early 1880s, the proportion of Jews in the Amur Region was approximately
2%. Not only were there no anti-Semitic riots and pogroms in this area,
which were typical for the European part of Russia at that time, but
there was also no everyday anti-Semitism. However, the policy of local
authorities towards Jews was discriminatory and restrictive - in full
accordance with the legislation in force at that time. In particular,
Jews were prohibited from settling in the 100-mile border strip with
China. In addition to legislative restrictions, there was also
widespread arbitrariness on the part of anti-Semitic local authorities.
Doctor of Historical Sciences Victoria Romanova notes that in the
conditions of a shortage of labor and financial resources in Siberia and
the Far East, the restrictive policy towards Jews, who did not pose any
threat to either the local population or the state system, had no
reasonable justification.
According to the 1897 census, of the
120 Jewish men in the Amur Region who fell under the category of
"independent population", there were 10 merchants, 9 traders, 41
peasants, 26 military personnel, 11 private servants, and 9 engaged in
the manufacture of clothing. According to the census, there were 394
Jews in the Amur Region (0.33% of the population). The duties of the
rabbi in Khabarovsk were performed in the second half of the 1880s by
the “learned Jew”, senior architect of the Construction and Road
Department under the Amur Governor-General Samuil Iosifovich Ber.
The October Revolution gave a new impetus to the development of this
territory. The abolition of the Pale of Settlement allowed a large
number of Jews to resettle on free lands within the former empire. The
Bolsheviks saw the solution to the Jewish question in Russia in the
"Sovietization" of the Jews, namely, in diverting them from activities
considered bourgeois (finance, trade, small-scale crafts) and
introducing them to physical labor. The revolution undermined the
traditional economic foundations of the Jewish population, and this was
a serious blow to the Jewish poor of the European part of the country,
deprived of their means of subsistence. Due to the fact that large-scale
industry in Russia was paralyzed as a result of the civil war, the
Sovietization of the Jews could only be realized through
"agrarianization", that is, turning the Jews into peasants. To do this,
it was necessary to stimulate the resettlement of Jews to the abundant
empty lands in Russia that were suitable for agriculture. The
advisability of creating an autonomous unit for the Jews of Russia was
noted by Lenin in 1919. The Jewish Commissariat under the People's
Commissariat of Nationalities, created in January 1918, was engaged,
among other things, in searching for free lands for the resettlement of
Jews. The issue of the formation of Jewish autonomy in the USSR was
discussed in the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union
Communist Party (Bolsheviks) since 1923. A corresponding commission was
created under the leadership of Alexander Tsyurupa.
In order to
organize and support the Jewish resettlement movement, in August 1924,
by the Resolution of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of
the USSR, the Committee for Land Settlement of Working Jews was created,
headed by Pyotr Smidovich. In December of the same year, the Public
Committee for Land Settlement of Working Jews was created under the
leadership of Yuri Larin. The latter's task was to mobilize the public,
primarily foreign, to support land management projects.
At first,
it was assumed that Jews would be resettled en masse to Crimea and the
Azov region, and there was a project to create a national autonomy in
Belarus. However, due to a number of reasons, in the mid-1920s, state
policy changed. On July 8, 1926, the Politburo of the Central Committee
of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) decided “to study the
possibility of creating, in addition, a massif in Altai in parallel with
practical work on northern Crimea and the Azov floodplains, by sending a
competent commission there in the Soviet manner.”
Gennady
Kostyrchenko wrote in his book “Stalin’s Secret Policy. Power and
Anti-Semitism”:
... The fact that the Crimean Jewish autonomy was
never created is explained, first of all, by the fact that back in the
spring of 1927, resettling Jews to the Far East was chosen as an
alternative. This option for solving the Jewish question in the USSR
seemed optimal to Stalin’s leadership at that time, especially in terms
of propaganda.
In this way, the problem of employment for tens of
thousands of Jewish traders, artisans and craftsmen who had gone
bankrupt and found themselves unemployed as a result of the curtailment
of the NEP policy was radically solved, while the severity of
anti-Semitism, on the contrary, was reduced by the resettlement of Jews
from the urbanized European part to the almost deserted area. At the
same time, it was planned to improve the demographic situation of the
sparsely populated region and strengthen the border with China. The
active supporters of the Far Eastern project were the chairman of the
Central Executive Committee Mikhail Kalinin and the chairman of the
Committee of Zelenskyy Tsereteli (KomZET) Pyotr Smidovich. The head of
OZET Yuri Larin was against this option, he believed that the difficult
natural conditions and significant isolation from the central regions
were unsuitable for city dwellers who were switching to agriculture for
the first time.
The organized settlement of this region after the
revolution began in 1925. According to the census at the end of 1926,
the population of the district was 34,195 residents, including Russians
- 30,417, Koreans - 3,178, and indigenous locals - 600 people.
On
March 28, 1928, the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the
USSR adopted a resolution "On the allocation to KomZET for the needs of
the continuous settlement of Jewish workers of free lands in the Amur
region of the Far Eastern Territory" in the amount of approximately 4.5
million hectares. In April-May 1928, trains with the first Jewish
settlers began to arrive at Tikhonkaya station. On July 7-8, 1928, the
first Jewish village council "Birefeld" was created in the area of the
Birsk experimental field and several settlements in the area of
Yekaterino-Nikolskoye.
Professor Boris Bruk conducted an expedition to survey the region
from June 22 to August 7, 1927. Afterwards, he wrote that the region was
wild, uninhabited, with a harsh climate, and therefore healthy, strong,
and courageous people, ready to endure and suffer a lot, were needed for
resettlement. Nevertheless, Bruk gave a positive assessment of the
project to create Jewish autonomy in this region.
In 1928, the
journey from Moscow to Khabarovsk took 9 days for an express train, and
about 2 weeks for a mail train. Trains with settlers, consisting of
freight cars with bunks, could travel for up to a month. One car was
designed for 5 families. It was assumed that the settlers would be
engaged mainly in agricultural work: land plots in the area of
Birefeld or Yekaterino-Nikolskoye were planned to be 4 hectares per
capita. The state loan was supposed to be from 400 to 600 rubles per
family. The first Jewish school in the region opened in November 1929 in
the village of Valdgeim.
The development of the region was
assisted by the American organization for assistance to Jewish land
management in the USSR, ICOR, which had existed since 1924. In 1928,
ICOR signed an agreement with the Soviet government, on the basis of
which it sent $250,000, a lot of cars, tools and equipment to
Birobidzhan. The Birobidzhan Committee in the USA ("Ambidzhan") also
provided assistance to the development of the region. On the contrary,
the international Jewish charitable organization Joint, which actively
financed the "Crimean project", categorically refused to allocate money
for land management in the Far East.
Despite significant efforts
by the authorities and foreign aid, the development of the region was
accompanied by great difficulties. In April 1928, the Khabarovsk
District Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) noted
the unpreparedness of local authorities to receive settlers. They did
not have the necessary material base for receiving settlers, and the
required funds were not allocated by the center. There was no clarity
even about the boundaries of the area allocated for resettlement. The
main problems were the lack of funding, mismanagement and poor
organization of the resettlement movement; KomZET demonstrated its
incompetence in this matter.
The Soviet leadership expected that
by 1933 the Jewish population of the Birsko-Bidzhansky district would
reach 60 thousand, and by 1938 - 150 thousand people. However, in
1928-1929 only 2,825 Jews arrived there, of which 1,725 left
Birobidzhan by the end of 1929. In total, of the 19,635 Jews who arrived
in Birobidzhan since 1928, by 1934 8,185 remained permanently residing,
and 11,450 left. The project to resettle Jews there from abroad failed
completely. A total of 500 foreigners arrived in the region, including
80 from Argentina and 150 from Lithuania. All the communes created in
the Birobidzhan region by Jews from other countries collapsed, and most
of their members left the USSR. The last major wave of foreigners'
outflow occurred after the famine that broke out in the USSR in 1933.
To overcome the crisis, the authorities decided to raise the
administrative status to an autonomous region, not hiding the fact that
this was a communist response to the Zionist project in Palestine.
After the revolution, the territory of the modern Jewish Autonomous
Region became part of the Far Eastern Territory. From 06.04.1920 to
15.11.1922, it was part of the Far Eastern Republic, a separate state
with its capital in Chita. Since 1922, this territory again became part
of the Far Eastern Territory of Soviet Russia. In 1926, the
administrative center of the Far East was moved to Khabarovsk, the
volosts were abolished, and districts were created in their place.
Including Yekaterino-Nikolsky and Mikhailo-Semyonovsky in the Amur
Region and in the Primorsky Region.
A number of small settlements
were created by Jewish settlers in the second half of the 1920s. On
August 20, 1930, the Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR adopted a
resolution "On the formation of the Biro-Bidzhansky National District
within the Far Eastern Territory", which included the
Yekaterino-Nikolsky, Birsky, Nekrasovsky, present-day Kur-Urmiisky, and
Mikhailo-Semenovsky Districts.
The district's borders were
described in the resolution as follows:
... from the mouth of the
Tunguska River up the Amur River to the confluence of the Gryaznaya
tributary with the Vtoraya Amurskaya channel, then along the northern
and western border of the pasture lands of the city of Khabarovsk to the
Amur River and then up the Amur to the confluence of the Khingan River,
near the village of Pashkovo, from here up the Khingan River to the
Bezymyanny Spring, from this place the border makes a sharp turn to the
east and runs along the Maly Khingan ridge, between the Kuldur,
Kamenushka, and Sagdy-Bira rivers from the south; having reached the
sources of the Beridzha River (the right tributary of the Solakum River,
Yaurin and Tyrmoy from the north and the left tributaries of the Bira
River - Urmi) along the Maly Khingan ridge, the border in the
north-eastern direction reaches the right peak of the Kosmun River
(which is also a right tributary of the Urmi River), following which the
border reaches the Urmi River, which then serves as the north-eastern
border of the described region to the confluence of the Urmi River with
the Tunguska River and along the latter to its mouth...
By the
Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of May 7, 1934,
the said national region, founded in 1930, received the status of an
autonomous Jewish national region.
In 1931, the village of
Tikhonkoe was renamed the workers' settlement of Birobidzhan (its
population at that time was 830 people), and on March 2, 1937, the
workers' settlement received the status of a city. By 1930, the
district's population was 37,583 people, and there were 248 settlements
on its territory, including 9 with a predominantly Jewish population.
The district was directly subordinate to the Executive Committee of the
Council of Workers, Peasants, and Red Army Deputies of the Far Eastern
Territory.
On July 20, 1934, the All-Russian Central Executive
Committee decided to "form within the Autonomous Jewish National Region:
Birobidzhan District with its center in the workers' settlement of
Birobidzhan;
Birsk District with its center in the workers'
settlement of Bira;
Stalinsky District with its center in the
settlement of Stalinsk (former Stalinfeld);
Blyukherovsky District
with its center in the settlement of Blukherovo (former
Mikhailovo-Semenovskoye);
Smidovichsky District with its center in
the workers' settlement of Smidovich (former In)." With the division of
the Far Eastern Territory into Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories in
1938, the region became part of Khabarovsk Territory.
One of the factors that changed the attitude of the Soviet
authorities towards this region was the international situation,
including the entry of the Japanese Kwantung Army into Manchuria in
September 1931 and the creation of the puppet state of Manchukuo in
February 1932. The strategic importance of the Birobidzhan region as a
direct border with Manchuria increased sharply. The decision to create
autonomy in May 1934 and an additional propaganda campaign contributed
to overcoming the crisis and an increase in the number of settlers.
As of September 1, 1934, the proportion of Jews was 45% of the total
population - the highest percentage in the history of the region. The
construction of a number of large facilities in Birobidzhan, as well as
roads and bridges, was launched. The publication of the Birobidzhaner
Shtern newspaper in Yiddish began, and the Jewish State Theater was
opened, which in 1936 was named after Lazar Kaganovich.
By 1932,
agriculture was already completely state-owned. There were 43 collective
farms, 3 state farms, and 4 machine and tractor stations in the region.
The area under crops had grown from 17 to 36 thousand hectares since
1928. 108 tractors, 3 combines, and 13 cars worked in the fields.
The first regional congress of Soviets took place in December 1934.
The state authorities of the Jewish Autonomous Region were formed until
the end of 1936. The first elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR
took place in the region on December 12, 1937.
The Jewish
community in the West followed the Soviet project. It was of particular
interest in connection with the sharp increase in the persecution of
Jews in Germany and the obstacles to their emigration to Palestine or to
European countries and the USA. Jewish organizations sent the government
of the USSR proposals to accept Jewish refugees from Germany into the
Jewish Autonomous Region, promising to support this project financially.
However, the reaction of the Soviet authorities to these proposals was
ambivalent: although the Politburo resolution of April 28, 1935
permitted the arrival of 1,000 families from abroad, it was subject to
extremely strict conditions. It later turned out that Birobidzhan was
ready to accept only 150-200 families, and only from Poland, Lithuania
and Romania. Later, this work was also curtailed due to the growth of
spy mania and mass terror. In total, 1,374 foreigners arrived in the
Jewish Autonomous Region from 1931 to 1936, some went back, and many of
the rest were arrested and sent to camps during mass repressions.
Perhaps the desire to resettle was also influenced by the absence of any
legally operating religious organizations in the Jewish Autonomous
Region. There was not a single synagogue in the Jewish Autonomous
Region, not a single operating religious building of any denomination,
and there were no registered clergy. On May 28, 1934, Mikhail Kalinin,
at a meeting with Jewish workers and intellectuals in Moscow, stated
that the transformation of the region into a republic was a matter of
time and that the government saw this project as a national Jewish
state. Plans to create a Jewish republic were disavowed by Stalin in
November 1936 in his speech "On the Draft Constitution of the USSR". In
it, he named three conditions necessary for the transformation of an
autonomous region into a republic: bordering an external state, having a
national majority and a population of at least one million people. The
JAO did not meet these requirements.
The mass repressions of the
second half of the 1930s significantly affected not only the flow of
foreign citizens, but also the local population. In 1936, the first
chairman of the executive committee of the JAO, Iosif Liberberg, was
arrested and shot in 1937; in the same 1937, his successor, Mikhail
Kattel, was arrested. The first secretary of the regional committee of
the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Matvey Khavkin was sentenced
to 15 years in the camps and rehabilitated only in January 1956. In a
short period of time, the leadership of the autonomy was practically
decapitated, since the leaders of the party and economic activists were
arrested almost to a man. In the autumn of 1938, 4.5 thousand Koreans
were deported from the territory of the region. During this period, one
of the active executors of the repressions, the head of the NKVD
Directorate for the Jewish Autonomous Region, Senior Lieutenant of State
Security Alexander Lavtakov, and a number of other NKVD employees were
also arrested and shot.
According to the 1939 census, the
population of the autonomy was 108,938 people, including 17,695 Jews
(16.2%). Kostyrchenko writes that the "Birobidzhan Project" was nothing
more than a propaganda campaign for the strategic cover-up of the idea
of complete assimilation of the Jewish population of the USSR.
During the Great Patriotic War, more than 12 thousand residents of
the region were called up to the front, 7 thousand of them died or went
missing, more than 7 thousand people were awarded orders and medals of
the USSR for bravery, courage and heroism. 14 people were awarded the
title Hero of the Soviet Union, and four became full cavaliers of the
Order of Glory. More than 7 thousand residents of the region were
awarded the medal "For Valiant Labor during the Great Patriotic War". On
April 24, 1945, former worker of the wagon plant in Birobidzhan
Lieutenant Iosif Bumagin covered an enemy machine gun with his body.
In 1942, construction of the Ushumun mine began in the region, in
1943 - the Birakan paper mill, a spinning and weaving mill was launched
in Birobidzhan, in 1945, a decision was made by local authorities to
build the Khinganolovo plant on the basis of the Malokhingan tin ore
deposit. After the end of the war, the leadership of the Jewish
Autonomous Region tried to obtain significant financial assistance from
the center. And on December 4, 1945, the first secretary of the regional
committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Alexander
Bakhmutsky and the chairman of the regional executive committee Mikhail
Zilbershtein proposed to Stalin the creation of an independent
autonomous republic subordinate to Moscow. Material, technical and human
resources were allocated primarily by the decree of the Council of
People's Commissars of the RSFSR of January 26, 1946 "On measures to
strengthen and further develop the economy of the Jewish Autonomous
Region", but the project to increase the status was rejected as
unfounded, since Stalin perceived it as an attempt to take revenge for
the closure of the Crimean project. However, organized resettlement, due
to the tense attitude around the re-evacuated Jews in the south, was
resumed in 1947. In total, 6,326 people arrived in the region from the
western part of the country in 1946-1948. From 1945 to 1948, the
American Ambidzhan Committee provided the JAR with assistance in the
amount of more than 6 million rubles.
The first Jewish religious
community was created in Birobidzhan on November 26, 1946. This
community ceased to exist by the beginning of 1985, a new community was
created only in July 1997. In 1947, a synagogue was built, it burned
down in 1956.
The repressions against Jewish cultural figures and the anti-Semitic
campaign against "cosmopolitans" that began in 1948 also affected the
Jewish Autonomous Region. The head of the regional committee of the
All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Bakhmutsky, the chairman of the
regional executive committee Levitin and many other prominent figures of
the region were arrested and convicted, and after Stalin's death in
1953, they were rehabilitated. Researchers of the region's history
Gurevich and Ryansky write:
Up until Stalin's death, what could
be called the destruction of the Jewish Autonomous Region as a national
center was taking place. Unfortunately, it has not recovered from this
to this day. Many people were exterminated on the basis of their
nationality, a cross was put on the further industrial development of
the region as an independent entity, all Jewish schools were closed, and
the local literary and musical elite was destroyed.
The territory
of the Jewish Autonomous Region, like other territories remote from the
center of the country, was used to house so-called special settlements.
In 1950, 2,400 special settlers were resettled in the territory of the
autonomy, who were under the supervision of 3 special commandant's
offices of the Ministry of State Security.
In total, 6,296 people
fell victim to political repression in the Jewish Autonomous Region from
1922 to 1958, including 2,557 administratively repressed and 3,739
criminally repressed (of which 1,087 were shot).
In 1953, the
Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a resolution "On measures to
assist agriculture in the Jewish Autonomous Region". In the 1950s and
1960s, a number of industrial enterprises were built in the region. The
leading industries were mechanical engineering, electrical engineering,
mining, and construction materials. In 1967, there were 21 state farms,
a poultry farm, 5 large collective farms, experimental agricultural and
melioration stations, 2 fishing collective farms, 3 construction and
installation departments of the Khabarovskvodstroy trust, 5 associations
and branches of Selkhoztekhnika in the region.
By the Decree of
the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Jewish Autonomous
Region was awarded the Order of Lenin on September 30, 1967 for the
successes achieved by workers in economic and cultural construction. By
the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of
December 29, 1972, the Jewish Autonomous Region was awarded the Order of
Friendship of Peoples for successes in economic and cultural
construction and in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the
formation of the USSR. According to the population census, as of January
15, 1970, 172,400 people lived in the region.
In 1972-1973, the
snowiest winter in the recorded history of weather in the region
occurred. That winter, about 70% of the roe deer population died in the
forests. The last Ussuri tiger was killed in the Jewish Autonomous
Region in 1982. Since 2007, tigers have begun to appear in the region
again, presumably they come from China.
In 1981, the building of
the House of Pioneers and Schoolchildren was built and put into
operation in Birobidzhan, in 1983, an automatic telephone exchange with
10 thousand numbers was put into operation. The building of the regional
philharmonic society with a concert hall for 700 seats was put into
operation in 1984. Construction of infrastructure, public and industrial
facilities continued. In 1987, the first 9-story building was built in
the capital of the region. However, the industrial enterprises created
in the region were distinguished by a large share of manual labor and
used outdated technologies, the knowledge-intensive sector in the
economy was absent.
Until 1990, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast was part of Khabarovsk Krai
(according to the 1978 Constitution of the RSFSR, autonomous regions
were part of the regions). In December 1990, the III Congress of
People's Deputies of the RSFSR amended the text of the Constitution of
the RSFSR, which significantly changed the administrative division of
the Russian Federation. It was proclaimed that from now on, autonomous
regions are directly part of the Federation.
On October 29, 1991,
the regional Council of People's Deputies adopted the Declaration on the
state and legal status of the JAO. In the same year, by the Resolution
of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, the Jewish
Autonomous Oblast was separated from Khabarovsk Krai into an independent
subject of the Russian Federation. After the transformation of all other
autonomous regions of Russia into republics in the early 1990s, the
Jewish Autonomous Oblast remained the only autonomous region in the
Russian Federation. On December 19, 1991, Nikolai Volkov was appointed
governor. In 2010, he was replaced by Alexander Vinnikov, in 2015 by
Alexander Levintal. Since 2019, Rostislav Goldstein has been the
governor.
On March 31, 1992, the Federal Agreement on the
delimitation of jurisdiction and powers between federal government
bodies and the authorities of the Jewish Autonomous Region was signed.
Having become one of the independent subjects of the federation in
the early 1990s, by the end of the 1990s, the JAR had become one of the
poorest and most depressed regions of Russia. Due to the low standard of
living (the situation in the Russian Federation is worse only in Tuva
and Ingushetia), the Jewish Autonomous Region ranks first in Russia in
terms of the number of people who left for Israel relative to the total
number of local Jews (for example, in the period from 1994 to 1998,
59.6% of the expanded Jewish population of the Jewish Autonomous Region
left for Israel compared to the 1994 population).
The problem of
the titular nation and projects for the transformation of the Jewish
Autonomous Region
In 1996, the flag and coat of arms were registered
in the region. On October 18, 1997, the Charter of the region was
adopted, according to which only Russian is recognized as the state
language in the Jewish Autonomous Region, and Yiddish is considered one
of the languages of the peoples of the Jewish Autonomous Region. In
March 1992, the first parish was registered in Birobidzhan, which
previously did not have a single Orthodox church.
According to
the Charter of the Jewish Autonomous Region of October 18, 1997, only
Russian is recognized as the state language in the Jewish Autonomous
Region, and the Jewish languages have the status of languages of one
of the peoples of the Jewish Autonomous Region. Article 6 of the Charter
of the Jewish Autonomous Region:
The Russian language in the region,
in accordance with the Constitution of the Russian Federation, has the
status of the state language.
The region creates conditions for the
preservation, study and development of the languages of the Jewish
people and other peoples living in the region.
The procedure for
using the languages of the peoples living in the region is determined
by federal legislation and the legislation of the region.
According to the 2010 census in the JAO with a total population of
176,558 people and a Jewish population of 1,628 people, 97 people (6% of
the Jewish population of the region) indicated proficiency in Yiddish,
312 people (19% of the Jewish population of the region) indicated
proficiency in Hebrew, and 54 people indicated proficiency in the Jewish
language without specification. The population of the region as a whole
and Jews in particular do not use Yiddish as a spoken language, although
there is a certain interest in Yiddish culture in the JAO (however, at
the 5th Jewish Culture Festival in 1999, some participants said that
Yiddish culture in the JAO was dying).
In 2009, the Central Bank
of Russia issued 10 million ten-ruble coins dedicated to the 75th
anniversary of the formation of the Jewish Autonomous Region.
There is a project to join the JAO to Khabarovsk Krai. Another proposal
is to join the JAO to Amur Oblast with the formation of Amur Krai. The
Jewish community is against the abolition of the JAO. The
Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of Russia in the Far
Eastern Federal District Viktor Ishayev is a supporter of the
unification of the JAO and Khabarovsk Krai, but considers it premature
at the moment. The project to abolish the JAO continues to be actively
discussed.
The Jewish immigrants who arrived in the Amur Region
in the 1920s and 1930s and their descendants never constituted the
majority of the population of the JAO, and after the large-scale
repatriation to Israel in the 1970s and 1990s they became a very small
minority. The Jewish population of the JAO reached its peak in 1937 — 20
thousand, after which it steadily declined. Currently, more than 15
thousand repatriates from the Jewish Autonomous Region live in Israel,
of which more than 5 thousand live in the city of Maalot, making up
about half of its residents. A meeting of repatriates from the JAO is
held annually in Israel. In 2008, the JAO was represented at this
meeting on June 25-27 by Birobidzhan Mayor Alexander Vinnikov, Director
of the Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of Regional Problems Efim
Frisman and others. The share of the titular nation is constantly
decreasing (1.0% in 2010), but the name and status of the autonomous
region are still preserved.
In 2007, the Jewish presence in the
JAO was extremely insignificant and was limited to the city of
Birobidzhan and the nearby village of Valdgeim. The low share of the
titular nation and the overall small population of the JAO led to the
emergence of projects to abolish the region. For example, as Yevgeny
Primakov stated:
Obviously, there are prerequisites for
considering the advisability of joining individual national entities to
the subjects of the Federation created on a territorial basis. For
example, the existence of the Jewish Autonomous Region, where the
"titular" nation makes up less than 1% of the population, is a political
anachronism.
Among the local media and some Jewish public
organizations, there are opponents of the projects to abolish the JAO
and supporters of its further development as an original Jewish
administrative entity. The project to abolish the JAO continues to be
actively discussed.
In August 2013, the Russian government
launched a program to attract Jews to the JAO, within the framework of
which 1 Jew came to the JAO.
The Birobidzhan project aroused great interest among the Jewish
community, including abroad. This determined the uniqueness of the
region, created as a national-territorial entity for migrants who went
there already during the years of Soviet power, on a territory that had
never previously been a place of compact residence of this people. The
feature film “Seekers of Happiness” (1936) directed by V.V. Korsh-Sablin
is dedicated to the resettlement process. The Soviet government actively
sought sponsors for the new region among the Jewish community abroad.
The American-Birobidzhan Committee (Ambidzhan), created in the USA in
1935, was particularly active.
The settlement of Jews in
Birobidzhan coincided with increased anti-Semitism and repression in
Nazi Germany. Therefore, it is no coincidence that in the early 1930s,
about 1.4 thousand Jewish emigrants from Europe, the USA, Argentina, and
Eretz Israel arrived in Birobidzhan.
Plans for the creation of a
Jewish republic were disavowed by Stalin in November 1936 in his speech
“On the Draft Constitution of the USSR.”
In 1945–1948 alone, the
region received food worth 6 million rubles from the United States. The
post-war period was marked for a short time by support for the Jewish
national movement - in 1947, a synagogue was opened in Birobidzhan, the
teaching of the Jewish language was expanded, and since 1948, workers of
the Birobidzhan garment factory were allowed not to work on Yom Kippur.
After the transformation of all other autonomous regions of Russia
into republics in the early 1990s, the Jewish Autonomous Region remained
the only autonomous region in Russia. After the adoption of the new
Constitution of the Russian Federation in 1993, the Jewish Autonomous
Region was separated from the Khabarovsk Territory and became an equal
subject of the Russian Federation.
Due to the low HDI (in Russia
it is lower only in Tyva and Chechnya (see the list of Russian subjects
by HDI level), the Jewish Autonomous Region ranks first in Russia in the
number of people who left for Israel relative to the total number of the
local Jewish population (for example, in the period from 1994 to In
1998, 59.6% of the expanded Jewish population of the Jewish Autonomous
Region of the 1994 population left for Israel. At the same time, in the
Jewish Autonomous Region in 1994, only 1.9% of the total Jewish
population of Russia lived and the region in 1996-1998 took first place
among subjects of Russia in terms of the number of migrants to Israel or
13 - 14% of the total migration from Russia to Israel during this
period. Nowadays, more than 15 thousand repatriates from the Jewish
Autonomous Region live in Israel (which is smaller in area than the
Jewish Autonomous Region), of which about five thousand live in city of
Ma'alot, accounting for almost a quarter of the city's population. An
all-Israeli meeting of repatriates from the Jewish Autonomous Region is
regularly held in Israel.
Due to its natural and climatic conditions, the autonomous region
belongs to one of the favorable corners of the Russian Far East. Its
territory is represented by two types of relief - mountainous and flat.
Mountain regions are the southern part of the vast Khingan-Bureya
mountain system, occupying approximately half of the entire area of the
region in the north and west. The highest point is Mount Studencheskaya
(1421 m). The flat part, stretching in the south and east, represents
the western edge of the Middle Amur Lowland, above the surface of which
three remnant-type ridges rise: the Daur ridge (674), the Bolshiye
Churki ridge (831) and the Uldur ridge (630). The territory is
approximately comparable to Moldova, Guinea-Bissau and Bhutan.
From the southwest, south and southeast, for 584 km, the territory of
the region is washed by the waters of one of the greatest rivers in
Eurasia - the Amur. The width of the channel at the western borders of
the region (near the village of Pashkovo) is 1.5 km, at the eastern
borders - 2.5 km. The Amur is covered with ice for 5 months - from the
end of November to the twentieth of April. In winter, the ice thickness
reaches 2 m, which allows freight and passenger transportation along the
river. Navigation lasts on average 180 days. The Amur basin includes a
number of large (more than 10 km long) and 1146 small (less than 10 km
long) rivers - these are the Bira, Bijan, Birakan, In, Urmi, Ikura and
others. The total length of the river network is 8231 km. The upper
reaches of the Bira and Bidzhan rivers serve as spawning grounds for Far
Eastern chum salmon.
The Jewish Autonomous Region is located in
the MSK+7 time zone. The applied time offset relative to UTC is +10:00.
The climate is moderate. Winters are light and cold (the average January temperature is from −19 °C in the extreme southwest in Amurzet to −25 °C in the mountains), summers are warm and humid. The terrain has a significant influence on the climate. During the year, 600–700 mm of precipitation falls, with about 75 percent of precipitation occurring between May and September.
The region's territory is covered with dense forests. The flora of
the region includes 1,392 species of plants, including more than 200
honey-bearing plants, about 300 medicinal species. The forests are rich
in berries, mushrooms and nuts. Of the 1.7 million hectares of forest
land, 165 thousand hectares are occupied by cedar-broad-leaved forests,
250 thousand hectares by spruce-fir, 165 thousand hectares by larch, 347
thousand hectares by oak. The timber reserve is 202 million m³ (State
Forest Register, 2009).
Meadow vegetation in the south of the
Russian Far East is divided into two classes. The first includes steppe
dry meadows occupying above-floodplain river terraces, mountain slopes
and ridges (hills). The second class is represented by wet and swampy
meadows, which are found mainly in river floodplains. Noteworthy are the
ornamental grass species growing in the steppe meadows, for example:
lactiferous peony, xiphoid iris, Pennsylvania lily (Daurian), Siberian
speedwell and others. Langsdorf's reed grass and meadowsweet are common
in both dry and wet meadows.
The fauna is diverse: brown and
Himalayan bears, Amur tiger, Nepalese marten, fox, weasel, sable, wild
boar, elk, red deer, pheasant, and various breeds of ducks are found
here. The mammal fauna includes 59 species.
The reservoirs of the
region are home to 73 species of fish, including white and black carp,
silverfish, yellow-cheeked salmon, kaluga, chum salmon, lenok, Amur
bream, sturgeon, carp, burbot, taimen, silver carp, grayling, pike and
others. Seven species that require special protection are listed in the
Red Book of Russia. To reproduce the Far Eastern salmon stock, there are
two fish hatcheries in the region with a capacity of laying 64.5 million
eggs per year.
The Bastak State Nature Reserve was established by Decree of the
Government of the Russian Federation on January 28, 1997 No. 96
(Collected Legislation of the Russian Federation, 1997, No. 6, Art.
744). Located on the territory of Obluchensky, Birobidzhansky and
Smidovichsky districts of the Jewish Autonomous Region. The total area
of the reserve is 127,094.5 hectares, including in the Obluchensky
district 72,662 hectares, Smidovichsky - 35,323.5 hectares and
Birobidzhansky - 19,109 hectares.
Five state natural complex
reserves occupy 225 thousand hectares, which is 7% of the region’s
territory.
The dynamic development of trade relations with China
after the collapse of the USSR led to changes in the environmental
situation in the region. Based on ten years of observations, it was
concluded that the volume of felling is many times greater than
permitted and declared. This has caused concern to the World Wildlife
Fund. Chinese-owned sawmills and timber yards play a key role in the
spread of illegal logging (page 17). Moreover, representatives of
organized crime groups occupy not the last place in this business.
Poaching contributes to the decline of rare animal species; and the main
direction of smuggling was the export of parts and derivatives.
On the territory of the Jewish Autonomous Region, deposits of more
than 20 types of minerals have been identified and explored, including
large deposits of iron, manganese, tin, gold, graphite, brucite,
magnesites, zeolites, and there are sources of mineral waters.
In
terms of the saturation of deposits and ore occurrences, the
concentration of minerals, the region is one of the richest territories
in Russia.
However, the potential of its natural resources has
not been fully studied and explored. In addition, the overwhelming
majority of the products of the mineral raw materials complex are
exported; there are very few processing enterprises.
The most
promising manifestations of mineral resources can and should attract the
attention of domestic and foreign investors. This would make it possible
to more fully use the mineral resource base of the Jewish Autonomous
Region.
Since the end of July 2013, the south of the Russian Far East and northeast China have been subject to catastrophic floods caused by intense, prolonged rainfall, which has led to a consistent increase in water levels in the Amur River. At the peak of the flood, on September 3 and 4, the water flow in the Amur reached 46 thousand m³/s, with the norm being 18-20 thousand m³/s. A flood of such magnitude occurred for the first time in 115 years of observation, and, according to models, the probability of such an event occurring again is once every 200-300 years.
The Jewish settlers who arrived in the Amur Region in the 1920s and
1930s and their descendants never constituted the majority of the
population of the Autonomous Region, and after the large-scale
repatriation to Israel in the 1970s and 1990s, they became a very small
minority. The Jewish population of the Autonomous Region reached its
peak in 1948 — 28 thousand, after which it has been steadily declining.
The share of the titular nation in the Jewish Autonomous Region is
constantly decreasing (the latest data is 837 people and 0.6% in 2020),
but the name and status of the autonomous region are still preserved. At
present (2020), the Jewish presence in the Jewish Autonomous Region is
extremely insignificant and is limited to the city of Birobidzhan and
the nearby villages of Valdgeim, Nayfeld, Birofeld and Ptichnik.
The first discussion about the region's status took place in 1990-1992,
when representatives of the Amur Cossacks and some Israeli-oriented
activists of Jewish organizations spoke out against maintaining Jewish
autonomy in the Russian Far East.
The large-scale migration of
Jews from the JAO to Israel led to the emergence of opinions about the
collapse of the JAO as a project of Jewish autonomy and the inexpediency
of its further existence, which could ultimately lead to the abolition
of the JAO for reasons of economic and administrative expediency.
Currently, the JAO is formally a Jewish autonomy, but in fact it is
a multi-ethnic subject of the Russian Federation, and Jewish influence
is limited by the small local Jewish population.
In September
2013, the government of the Jewish Autonomous Region approved a program
to attract compatriots to the Jewish Autonomous Region ("Providing
assistance to the voluntary resettlement of compatriots living abroad to
the Jewish Autonomous Region") based on the decree of the President of
Russia dated September 14, 2012 N 1289 "On the implementation of the
State program to assist the voluntary resettlement of compatriots living
abroad to the Russian Federation."
According to press reports,
only 1 Israeli came to the Jewish Autonomous Region under this program.
There is a project to annex the Jewish Autonomous Region to
Khabarovsk Krai. Another proposal is to annex the Jewish Autonomous
Region to Amur Oblast to form Amur Krai.
The low share of the
titular nation and the overall small population of the Jewish Autonomous
Region have led to the emergence of projects to abolish the region.
In 2022, agricultural products were produced for 8 billion rubles, of
which crop production - 6.5 billion rubles, livestock - 1.4 billion
rubles. The production index is 116.5%, 120.4%, 101.7%, respectively,
for agricultural organizations - 183.4%, 192.5%, 102.3%, respectively.
The land resources of the region are 36,266 km². There are 391.1
thousand hectares of agricultural land, including about 136.1 thousand
hectares of arable land. When carrying out reclamation work, the arable
land area can be increased by 3-4 times.
Favorable soil and
climate conditions, a long growing season, a high annual sum of positive
temperatures and abundant precipitation during the warm period of the
year make it possible to grow many agricultural crops - grain and
leguminous crops (including soybeans and corn), vegetables, potatoes,
and melons. Important branches of agricultural production are meat and
dairy farming, and poultry farming.
The area under crops for 2022
is 121.6 thousand hectares (+19.4%), of which soybeans are 113.1
thousand hectares (+20.5%), potatoes are 2.11 thousand hectares (-2.4%),
vegetables are 0.44 thousand hectares (-11.2%), forage crops are 0.3
thousand hectares (-40.6%), grain and leguminous crops are 5.7 thousand
hectares (+17%), including oats are 2.4 thousand hectares (+9.5%),
spring wheat is 1.7 thousand hectares (+49.3%), and spring barley is 1.2
thousand hectares (+54.4%).
Gross harvests in 2020 of the main
agricultural crops in farms of all categories: grain and leguminous
crops (in weight after processing) - 8,759 tons, soybeans - 59,044 tons,
potatoes - 34,583 tons, vegetables - 9,315 tons.
Gross harvests
in 2020 of fruit and berries - 1,691.7 tons (+44.4%), of which: grapes -
32 tons (an increase of 4.2 times), pome fruits - 300.4 tons (2.4
times), stone fruits - 484.2 tons (+39.5%), berries - 907 tons (+30.1%).
As of January 1, 2021, there were 6,768 heads of cattle (-4%) in
farms of all categories, including 3,045 cows (-8.2%), 1,137 pigs
(-82.7%), 3,354 sheep and goats, 926 horses, 72.2 thousand birds
(+3.7%).
In 2020, 9.4 thousand tons of milk were produced
(-1.9%). Cattle and poultry for slaughter (in slaughter weight) - 1,161
tons, eggs - 12.8 million pieces, honey - 674 tons.
The Jewish Autonomous Region is one of two regions of Russia that do not have power plants; thus, the entire volume of electricity consumed in the region comes from outside. In 2020, energy consumption in the Jewish Autonomous Region amounted to 1,764 million kWh, with a maximum load of 305 MW.
The Trans-Siberian Railway runs through the region from west to east. The Amur River with its tributaries in the south of the region is navigable and suitable for water transport. Two highways run through the region: one runs from west to east across the entire region from Oblutchye to Khabarovsk, and the second runs from south to north in the direction from Nizhneleninsky through Lazarevo to Birobidzhan.
In the Jewish Autonomous Region, since the Soviet era, in addition to
Russian, Yiddish, the language of the Jews of Central and Eastern
Europe, which was further developed under Soviet conditions, was also
widely spoken. The development of Yiddish, like any other language, is
primarily associated with the definition, establishment and recognition
of its status. The status of Yiddish in the history of the Jewish people
has changed several times: from "jargon" to a national language, and
then to the language of public administration, the language of official
power, as was done in the Jewish Autonomous Region. According to the
Charter of the JAO of October 18, 1997, only Russian is recognized as
the state language in the JAO, and the languages of the Jewish people
(Yiddish, Hebrew, Sephardic and others) are only some of the languages
of the peoples of the JAO.
Article 6 of the Charter of the
Jewish Autonomous Region:
The Russian language in the territory of
the region, in accordance with the Constitution of the Russian
Federation, has the status of the state language.
The region creates
conditions for the preservation, study and development of the languages
of the Jewish people and other peoples living in the region.
The
procedure for using the languages of the peoples living in the region
is determined by federal legislation and the legislation of the region.
According to the 2020-2021 census, 63 people indicated proficiency in
Hebrew (of which 19 people use it in everyday life), and 24 people
indicated proficiency in Yiddish (of which 9 people use it in everyday
life). According to the 2010 census, in the Jewish Autonomous Region
with a total population of 176,558 people and a Jewish population of
1,628 people, 97 people (6% of the Jewish population of the region)
indicated proficiency in Yiddish, 312 people (19% of the Jewish
population of the region) indicated proficiency in Hebrew, and 54 people
indicated proficiency in unspecified Jewish (of which 10 people use
Ladino and dialects of Sephardic). The population of the region as a
whole and Jews in particular do not use Yiddish as a spoken language,
although there is a certain interest in Yiddish culture in the Jewish
Autonomous Region (however, at the 5th Jewish Culture Festival in 1999,
at a press conference of festival participants, it was stated that
Yiddish culture in the Jewish Autonomous Region is dying). However,
since then, eight more Jewish culture festivals have been held, which
are usually held every two years.
In the 2000s, interest in
Yiddish began to fade: the Birobidzhan Pedagogical Institute stopped
regularly recruiting students to the Yiddish department due to the lack
of demand for graduates and the low demand for this specialty (in total,
150 people were trained in 20 years since the opening of the department
in 1990), Jewish State School No. 2 with Yiddish instruction was merged
with another school, and the Yiddish office at the Institute for
Advanced Teacher Training was abolished. However, as of 2020, Lyceum No.
23 with in-depth study of the Jewish language, culture and traditions
operates in the city of Birobidzhan. Yiddish is also studied at the
school in the village of Valdgeim, Birobidzhan District. Jewish
languages (Yiddish and Hebrew) are taught at the Jewish Sunday School,
as well as in two Jewish kindergartens. Yiddish is also studied as an
option in several other schools in Birobidzhan (Gymnasium No. 1, school
in the Bumagina district). In 2019, the Jewish Youth Center was built
and opened, in the building of which a kindergarten from the religious
movement "Chabad" was planned to open in September 2020.
The
reduction in the number of Yiddish speakers among both readers and
authors of the newspaper forced "Birobidzhaner Shtern", in addition to
Yiddish, to publish part of the newspaper in Russian. Currently,
the Yiddish insert in the newspaper "Birobidzhaner Shtern" has been
reduced to 1-3 pages).
In the Jewish Autonomous Region, there is
the publishing house "Birobidzhan" as part of the regional printing
house, the Russian-language newspaper "Birobidzhanskaya Zvezda" with a
circulation of 6,000 copies and the newspaper in Russian and Yiddish
"Birobidzhaner Shtern" with a circulation of 1,700 copies.
Since April 1, 2010, the Jewish Autonomous Region has been
participating in an experiment on teaching the course "Fundamentals of
Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics" (including "Fundamentals of
Orthodox Culture", "Fundamentals of Islamic Culture", "Fundamentals of
Buddhist Culture", "Fundamentals of Jewish Culture", "Fundamentals of
World Religious Cultures" and "Fundamentals of Secular Ethics").
As of 2024, the only functioning higher education institution in the
region is the Sholem Aleichem Primorsky State University. Previously
existing branches of other universities have been liquidated or are in
the process of being liquidated.
There is an opinion that during periods of heightened tensions between the USSR and China, the territory of the Jewish Autonomous Region could play the role of a buffer region, and the very location of the formation of the Jewish autonomy was determined more based on considerations and the need to strengthen Soviet power in an important border region with its sparse population and the then threat from Japan, the White Cossack émigrés in Manchuria, the raids of the Honghuzi and spontaneous migration from China, than from the point of view of the interests of the settlers.
As of September 25, 2024:
Axelrod Mikhail Grigorievich
Arnapolin Willy Izrailovich
Baklan Vladimir Grigorievich
Bardal
Valentina Maksimovna
Baselin Semen Yudovich
Belenkaya Ida
Leonidovna
Berkutov Nikifor Ivanovich
Brooke Boris Lvovich
Brusilovsky Lazar Moiseevich
Veitzer Pyotr Nikolaevich
Boris
Mikhailovich Golub
Gurevich Valery Solomonovich
Gozhiy Viktor
Spiridonovich
Derbenev Pyotr Pavlovich
Dzhabarov Vladimir
Mikhailovich
Drabkin Aleksandr Leonidovich
Ekimova Nina Nikolaevna
Ignatiev Viktor Dmitrievich
Kandelya Mikhail Vasilievich
Kaufman
Mark Matveevich
Kiseleva Galina Nikolaevna
Klimenkov Peter
Mikhailovich
Kolobov Ivan Stepanovich
Korsunsky Boris Leonidovich
Crystal Augusta Davydovna
Kubarev Ivan Stepanovich
Lantsman Efim
Moiseevich
Liberberg Iosif Izraylevich
Lopatin Alexey Prokopievich
Lopatin Georgiy Dorofeevich
Makarova Zemfira Alekseevna
Mammadov
Hikmet Aligeydar ogly
Marundik Nina Ivanovna
Matisova Valentina
Dmitrievna
Matushevskaya Olga Fedorovna
Nemov Anatoliy Ivanovich
Nosenko Alexey Leontievich
Pazdnikov Vladimir Erofeevich
Panman
Valery Ilyich
Peller Vladimir Izraylevich
Boris Aleksandrovich
Pishchura
Schoolboy Isaac Abramovich
Cancer Boris Efimovich
Rogalev Mikhail Sergeevich
Rysin Vilya Isakovich
Samburskaya Vera
Fedorovna
Skachkov Aleksandr Afanasevich
Surnin Anatoliy
Aleksandrovich
Tenzer Boris Solomonovich
Toitman Lev Grigorievich
Tian Arthur Vasilievich
Ushakov Georgiy Alekseevich
Fakitdinov
Oleg Zagrievich
Tsap Vladislav Abramovich
Shestopalov Mikhail
Arkhipovich
Yanovich Vasily Alekseevich
Yanovsky Evgeniy
Nikolaevich