Day in the history of the Jewish Autonomous Region
Photo: Regional Library
November 6, 1957
On November 6, 1957, the doors of the new Birobidzhan department store on Sholom Aleichem Street opened.
This beautiful two-story building with stucco decorations appeared on the site of a former swamp.
The new department store has cash registers in all departments. To the right of the entrance are the economic and religious departments. To the left of the entrance doors are the departments “Fabrics” and “Haberdashery”.
Department store in Birobidzhan. Photo: Photo: From the archive of Efim Veprinsky
The new store also has a ready-made dress salon, which is located on the second floor. On the same floor they sell shoes, knitwear and perfumes.
The new department store has 26 sales associates serving customers. This is how the Birobidzhan Star newspaper (12+) describes this event:
“Customers are leaving the new department store happy. Many have bought good gifts in recent days. Galina Ivanovna Maksimenko, for example, has had her long-time dream come true. She bought a sewing machine made in the People’s Republic of China. The wife of a worker at the tractor trailer plant, Comrade Popov, bought the same machine. A worker at the same plant, Comrade Kapustin, bought a tea set and an electric iron new construction. The new department store is visited daily by hundreds of workers.”
November 6, 1960
In the newspaper “Birobidzhan Star” of 1960, November 6, the director of the mechanization school N. Makarov talks about the mechanization school, which was transferred from Khabarovsk to the village. Leninsky.
“Now the school has been transferred to Leninskoye, the center of the largest agricultural region in the region.
The first cohort of 100 people will begin their studies this year. In six months they will receive qualifications as tractor drivers and mechanics of the third category. Thirty people have already been accepted, and the influx of applications continues.
From the new year we will begin training generalist machine operators. They will master the specialties of tractor drivers, combine operators, machinists, and mechanics of the fourth category.”
Day in the history of the Jewish Autonomous Region. Photo: Photo: Regional Library
Interesting in the same newspaper article “Salary without a cashier”which says that for almost two months at the Birobidzhan knitting factory, factory workers and employees have been receiving wages without a cashier:
“The foreman brings a statement and money to the workshop, puts them on the table. One by one, the workers come up to the table. They sign the box next to their last name, and they themselves count out the amount due.
Fast and convenient. There has never been a case of even a minor shortage. All 700 factory workers receive wages without a cashier.”
In the article by the head of the club of the village of Novoe, Leninsky district, V. Vechkanov, “The village has its own Tretyakov Gallery,” it is said that Khabarovsk artists sent several of their works as a gift to the collective farm “Trudovaya Niva”:
“Among the works sent were copies of paintings by famous Russian artists and works by our local painters. Collective farmers now love to go into their club and look at the paintings hanging on the walls.”
