"ECONOMIC CONDITIONS IN THE LENINGRAD AREA/INDUSTRIAL MATERIALS (METALS, TOOLS, MACHINE OIL)"

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81-01028R000100110008-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 15, 2001
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: May 14, 1952
• Content Type: REPORT

Approves F-or Release Z001/ut3/uZ :'GIA-FSM$ljl0Zt3Ftuuu1uu11uu
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
SUBJECT
COUNTRY a USSR
PLACE
ACQUIRED
DATE
ACQU I RED
INFORMATION REPORT
25X1A
Economic Conditions in the
Leningrad Area// Industrial Materials
(Metals o Toola* Maehi,ne ' Oil)
THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS INFORMATION AFFECTING THE NATIONAL DEFENSE
OF TNf UNITED STATES, WITHIN THE MEANING OF TITLE 18, SECTIONS 799
AND 794, OF THE V.B. CODE, AS AMENDED. !T%.% TSMISSION OR REYE-
4ATION OF ITS CONTENTS TO OR RECEIPT MY N THORIZED PERSON 1S
F ONI.?ITCO BY LAW. THE AEPR000CT ION OF THIS FORM IS PROHIBITED.
L____
25X1
during my stay in the USSR, (1) m when
DATE DISTR. If o7,4y
NO. OF PAGES 6
NO. OF ENCLS.
(LISTED BELOW)
25X1A SUPPLEMENT TO
REPORT NO.
THIS IS UNEVALUATED INFORMATION
General
25X1A
1, I believe that there were three distinct economic periods
everything was rationed and living conditions were rather 25X1A
25X1A difficult. Almost any commodity could. be bought during those
years but few people could afford to buy beyond their rations,
25X1A
25X1A
FORM NO. 51-4F
OCT 1951
/. , lE111' _DISTRIBUTION
X -SEC ETJ'5E+ '# I'iY INFQRMAT; ON
(2) when rationig was ended.unti This
period was marked by a steady improvement in the supply of most
goods and by periodic price reductions up to 20 percent for a 25X1A
great many items (3) Beginning with there
was a gradual leveling off in the trend -rice
cuts became rarer, were only 5-10 percent., and were usually 25X.1A
restricted to a small category of.goods? in order to get an
idea of the varying conditions, it is necessary to quote three
separate prices--two for the rationed
and for the unrationed goods and another price for the same (un-
r?ationed goods ine was the only rationed product
in 1951x) Generally rites stabilized somewhere
between the former rationed price and the "free" price, These
were still above the-prices of 19380. A manes shirt,, for example.,
cost about Rubles 500 in 19k0p Rubles 1500 (free market) and 600
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25X1A -2- 25X1A
(rationed) - and about Rubles 1000
25X1A4
I would
the Plant Management Department was paid only Rubles 1500 a
month but he had various special privileges that presumably
compensated for his low salary.) The monthly salary of an
unskilled worker ranged from Rubles 560-800; a skilled worker
was paid Rubles 800-1000 per month.
2.
25X1A
charged Rubles 35 per meal. The food was plentiful and the
menu varied and included soup, meat, eggs., vegetables and
dessert. At that price, however, I was soon in debt and asked
for permission to go on the regular rationing system with my
family. For Rubles 3000 one could live very well and buy
25X1 A many thins'. My monthly food budget for ou family, which
.Rubles 800- 25X1A
1000 during the peribd of rationing; after it was Rubles
1000-1200 per month. The ordinary Soviet people lived quite
cheaply on their standard diet which consisted of cabbage. with
cranberries cooked in -it and black bread.. On rare oceasIcns
they cooked pork in their cabbage. I recall the. food
prices listed below: (All prices are in rubles)
25X1A
25X1A
(Un-
Products
Unit
Free Market RatiOned- _ rationed)
Bread
kg
30
8 3
Butter
kg.
.
275 55 40-50
Milk
liter
25 (farmer) (only for babies) 2.5,
Eggs
one
12-15 (")
2
1.5
Potatoes
kg
25 .
2-3.
1
Onions
kg
40
(1.5 when available) 2.5.
Tomatoes
kg
5
Cabbage
kg
2.5
(rarely available)
2-3
Pork
kg
125-150
30
25
Beef
kg
125-160
30
25
Fowl
kg
60-80 (farmer)
-
- ~ I}
Chocolate bar 100 gr
4
5
- 12
Apples
kg
0
-
12
Tangerine
one
4
-
1.5
Oranges
one
(rarely. available.....,)
-
25X1A
he farmers took bread rather than money in exchange
for those items which we usually bought from them., We traded
bread for milk., butter, sugar and fovZ. at the rate of about one
kg of bread for a liter of milk. Our bread ration was more than
-sufficient and we did not eat much of it. Cabbage was rarely
available in government stores; most people bought cabbage,
small berries, eg,cherries and strawberries, directly from the
small. farmer. Apples 'were brought to the government stores from
the kolkho.zes. I was very surprised that fowl, which is
considered a luxury commodity in Germany, cost only half as much
as regular meat, Frozen potatoes, with dirt on them, were sold
in the open market.
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25X1A
Clothing 25X1A
k.. Good clothing was available although it was of limited variety
and expensive. After M one could buy wool clothing easily
but in it became difficult to obtain.cnd kitting
wool. was a:mos t armpossible to get. Cotton was much cheaper .
but was not used much because of the cold weather in Leningrad.
Although synthetic fiber did exist:, it was mucch less available
than it had been in Germany during Wct?ld War IL I remember
the following clothing prices-. (al,l prices are in rubles)
Products
One meter of wool
Man's suit (t ailormade)
Silk dress
Genuine Persian lam'
fur ,-oat
Shoes (Soviet made)
(men's)
Shoes.(Czech)(nenz )
Leather~ shoe soles
Rubber shoe soles
-
75
200
1500
Goo
800
-
800
25000
12-15000
7-800
1
50
250
-
.
.
3 -x.00
50
25X1A
l2-13
I bought a pair of shoes and they are still
quite serviceable. A good quality suit was obtained by purchasing
the cloth for about Rubles 200 per meter and having It made in a
state-owned to ,Loring shop. The tailoring bill amounted to
Rubles 175 and, with trimmings, the suit cost about Rubles 1200-
1500.
Luxuries
25X1A
25X1A
5. Luxury goods were easily available for those who had enough money.
For example, -,y there was a wide choice of Soviet, German
and Swiss watches. I had bought a wrist watch which hags, given
good service,. for Rubles 180 This watch had steel
springs, and had been made by Thiel in the Soviet Zone of Germany.
25X1A This same watch or a comparable Soviet make such as "Pobeda
would have cost Rubles 500 Something which made me
suspicious of Soviet workmanship in their watches was the great
number of watch repair shops, Cosmetics and perfumes were readily
available and sold in great variety. Most; salesgirls used
lacquer for their fingern..~ai1s and rouge for their lips; there was
no campaign against these practices as there had been in the
Soviet Zone of Germany. Beauty shops gave permanents at very
reasonable rates and my wife claims that they are better than
those given in Germany. Silk stockings, made of synthetIc fibers,
cost Rubles kl 25X1A
.Heating and Cooking Fuels
60 The heating fuel most often used in Sestroretsk was wood--usu-
ally birch or pine. The wood was bought in split logs about one 25X1A
meter long and then sawed in half. wood ,ost Rubles
25-30 per cubic meter. Peat is used rarely and only in briquets;
in Germany it is used directly. There was very little central
heating in private houses in Sestroetsk, but the Institute.,
where I worked, and public places such as schools, were centrally
heated. New apartment houses in Leningrad all provided,,central
heating. Tb.e man, cooking fuel used was kerosene, ,t;ht kind we
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burned in lamps in Germany and which sold for Rubles 1.8 per liter.
The kerosene was not rationed and,.was sold by a house-to-house
peddler. Cooking,utensils were available but rather expensive.
.An average cooking pot, made of enamel, cost about Rubles 50.
Aluminum cooking pots were also-quite common and somewhat cheaper
than enamelware.
Power and Electrical Appliances 25X1A
? R^ 1 111 I I I I I III I I II II -
7. power consumption was limited to 60 kw per month per
household. After that there were no restrictions, ie, current
shutoffs, as we had had in Germany. At the Institute we had no
25X1A trouble with electric current, Refrigerators* washing.-machines
and other electrical appliances were displayed in shop windows
as they had been in Germany, bui Z, .knew tow people .who owned
refrigerators.' light bulbs were. rare but after that
time they became rea y available and were of fair quality. A
60-watt bulb cost about Rubles 3.. All ,ousea inlSestroretsk had
electricity and most people used at least one electric heating
plate.
Transportation
25X1A
8. I saw many German oars, including Opels and Mercedes.
25X1 A the only German oars used ^were BMWs (made by the.
arse ayr ache Motoren Werke in the Soviet Zone of Germany).
Generally, Soviet-manufactured cars such as Zia and Pobeda have
replaced German make care, for which spare parts were almost
unobtainable. There was no great difficulty in getting parts
25X1 A for Soviet care. A Soviet friend who used a car, told tae:
that about 90 percent of Spviet.oaars were star -owned. Gasoline,
which was still rationed cost Rubles 4 per liter but,
as my friend told me, few people used up. their ration because
they could get most of their gasoline from chauffeurs along the
road for about Rubles 1.5 per liter,. In Leningrad there were a
.great many trolley buses and streetcars* The streetcars were
completely renewed after World War II and gave excellent
25X1A service. It was very rare.that one had to wa.t long at a street-
car station, although the cars were very Crowded. The electri-
fication of the circular railroad from Zen gad. to ' Sestroretsk
was to ae compJ.eroea lr; .; t . ;a
Roads and Construction
-9. All roads and streets in Sestroretek.and the surrounding region
were either paved or hard surfaced. The material most frequently
used was asphalt* I never saw any concrete-surfaced roads and
believe the' use of..coz cretevwas impractical because of heavy
frosts. While we were in Sestrr tak the shore road was straightened
out. This was done in the most extraordinary fashion. First, a
bulldozer'tore open a track and then the sand was sprayed with tar
from a special machine and finally covered with approximately two
inches of asphalt. The wo-kproceeded at the rate of two--three
hundred meters per day. The German scientists were horrified by
this superficial way of building a road and prophesied that it
would be ruined in a short time. After two years of relatively
heavy-traffic, however, it was almost as good as when it had been
surfaced.
11. The Soviets are quite proficient In the construction of heavy 25X1A
machinery which requires little precision work,. All road and
railroad construction which I saw was done by heavy machinery
25X1A such as cranes and exeavatpre* these machines were
of Germ n make and had 'almost certainly been taken as reparations.
the Soviets began manufacturing them but I cannot
remember any names of the companies producing the machinery. I
was particularly impressed by Soalet snow removing equipment.
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Hue tk rxxc e?-axle trucks, with rotating disks in front, were used.
The sa:pow was sucked _ up and ejected high into the air, even over
hour es a ong the road. In spite of heavy snow falls, we were
never infpeded by snow. In Leningrad the streets were all
clcariad of snow by 10 ot?clock in the morning and the snow was
dumped into the Neva River.
lit. Most of Leningrad is built of brick. I was very surprised by
the ' speedy construction method of the Soviets. It is called the
?t: xlee~, man system". and was first used in the rebuilding of Warsaw.
The flr ~t worker does nothing but shovel mortar onto the wa11,
the second worker lays the brick into place and the third worker
e., enenta, it. The advantage is that the first two workers do not
have to be skilled masons, The whole process is extremely fast;
walls ,, ould be erected five times faster than in Germany. The
pr . zs w o full of this wonderful example of Soviet Ingenuity.
Industrial Ma%,erials
25X1 A 15. Regarding the availability of industrial materials in the USSR,
ticed that-the Soviets do not have high grade
s tee. s i Cage adversely affects the manufacture and ;r apply
of all tools, eg, cutting tools, which depend directly upon the
quality of the steel. Regarding the supply of particular tool;
which were needed in Soviet industry, the Soviets proved t_lem-
selves very, adept at obtaining these from factories producing
them In the Soviet Zone of Germany? (The Sovietb frequently dis-
mantled a well supplied factory existing in the Soviet Zone of
Germany and reestablished It in the USSR and then often rebuilt
the same factory in Germany.) For example, we had some
excellent drills and cutting to ~GaIs at the Institute because
Stock & Company at Weissensee, Germany (Soviet Zone),
specialized in their manufacture. We always had difficulties
in. the procurement of pipes and tubing, because these items
were manufactured almost exclusively by Mannesmann, in the Ruhr.
We found that it was easier to get a brass pipe than an ordinary
iron one, The primary shortages were-of all types of valves,
grinding tools, tubes and piping,
25X1A
16. There were no shortages whatsoever in screws; nuts, nails, wire
and bolts as large, quantities had been obtained from Germany at
the end of World War 11.
was with bolts above 10 mm in ame er. AII n- zoo is., c 1A
25X1A haxmers, saws, files, chisels and tongs were rather scarce an
of poor. quality. My hack saws, for example, were only .good for
an hon-'s service whereas in Germany they lasted a week.
as reamers,
r roae es w c. Had come rom Germany and
which were a prime target for thieves, However, Soviet manu-
factured tools of this type were soft and wore out quickly. 25X1A
Grinding tools were particularly inferior. At the Leuna subsi-
diary plant at Moosb erbaum Austria (where worked for four
years),
Soviet man ac ure wou ave worn down to the axe in a month,
There was a special ractory in Moscow, called "Kalibr" wriich
made micrometers and calipers which were of fairly good quality.
I believe that this factory is well known as it rates as a model
and many foreigners were taken to visit it. Machine oils
(Ubrenoel) were generally good. as they came from a factory in the
Soviet Zone of Germany which specialized in their production.
(I cannot remember the name of this factory but recall that it
so anded French.) This factory, located in Dresden, supplied
practically the entire Wehrmacht with gun oil. Most metals, such
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as copper, zinc, and aluminum were of good.. quality.
Uceasionailv. however, we had diffiuulty with special kinds of
metals.
formers. The . ov e. e
When we rewound the same wire over German metalo the trans-
eormers would run-for hours without heating. The only consistR
shortage in metals was of high.grade steel. Shortages of
valves of every type, as well as couplings, fittin s and joints
such as nipples and flanges were critical,
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