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Approved For Release 2004/02/19 : CIA-RDP83-00415R006800050005-6 Soviet people, will join in building the new stations on the Volga. Trainloads of equipment, materials, and machinery from all parts of the USSR are already en route to Kuibyshev and Stalingrad. Men and women from all the republics of our multinational homeland will work on these construction projects. Work has long since become a matter of honor for Soviet people. And what a great honor it is to take personal part in these grand construction works of communism, works whose goal is the utilization of natural riches for the people's welfare! The Sovict electric power nctwork serves the interests of the people, light- ening their labor, creating: an abun- dance of material benefits, raising cul- ture and promoting the successful build- ing of a communist society. Thus, the Kuibyshev and Stalingrad hydroelectric stations will have tremen- dous significance in bringing about a powerful new upsurge in socialist agri- culture, in raising the efficiency of farm- ing and stockbreeding, and ensuring high and stable crop yields over a vast + area of 34,600,000 acres which was af- flicted for centuries by drought. Every- body who has been in the Trans-Volga and Caspian areas knows the disastrous force of the dry winds, has seen the dunes built up by the advancing sands, has experienced the stifling heat thet pre- vails in those parts. In good years exccl- lent grain harvests mature here, but frequently the dry winds and the scorch- ing sun burn out the crops. Five years from now full-watered canals will run through these lands, and where today arid tracts stretch endlessly, electric trac- tors will plow the virgin soil, combines will harvest golden fields of wheat, lux- uriant orchards will blossom, and _pic- turesque oak woods will arise. All this will be done by Volga water and electric power. The Kuibyshev Hydroelectric Station will annually supply agriculture with 1,500,000,000 kilowatt-hours of electric energy for irrigation of the Trans-Volga area, and the Stalingrad Station will supply 2,000,000,000 kilowatt-hours. The Volga will turn into a chain of vast storage lakes. Part of the electric energy generated will be employed to operate electric pumps for transferring Volga water to special reservoirs from which it will run, along numerous irri- gation canals, to the boundless fields. Construction of the Kuibyshev and Stalingrad hydroelectric developments and the subsequent irrigation works will transform the aspect and the economy of a huge region, will alter the climate of the Trans-Volga and Caspian areas to serve man. In the Trans-Volga area more than 6,000,000,000 acres of land are to be irrigated. In the northern part of the Caspian lowlands (between the Ural and Volga rivers) water supply and ir- rigation projects will embrace about 15,- 000,000 acres. In the Sarpa lowlands, on the Chorniye Zemli and in the No- gaisk Steppe, situated on the right bank of the lower reaches of the Volga, water supply and irrigation works will cover some 3,706,500 acres. Here large- scale development in planting forests of industrial significance and shelter belts against the dry winds will also be carried out. The desert and semi-desert districts in the northern part of the Caspian low- lands will be developed for large-scale stockbreéding and farming. The condi- tions for intensive and stable farming in the lower districts of the Trans-Volga area, which formerly always suffered from an insufficiency of water, will be improved substantially. In the Sarpa lowlands, on the Chorniye Zemli and in the Nogaisk Steppe stockbreeding, which even now occupies an important place there, will experience extensive development. And finally, construction of the Kui- byshev and Stalingrad power stations will serve to improve navigation condi- tions on the Volga. The new power giants on the Volga are component parts of the great Stalin plan for the transformation of nature in our country. They are a striking test- imonial to the peaceful constructive la- bor of the Soviet people, to their un- shakable faith in the might of their socialist homeland. STALINGRAD STATION‘S SITE. The bank of the Volga near Stalingrad (left) where the great new hydroelectric station will be built. A topographer (right) begins taking the horizontal plan of the construction site. 580 USSR INFORMATION BULLF Approved For Release 2004/02/19 : CIA-RDP83-00415R006800050005-6