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TIME TO TELL THE TRUTH!

"Torgsins" - paying with gold for the life of Ukrainian peasants

One of the brightest illustrations of how Stalin's regime was able to use the opportunity and make a fortune on people's destitution is the activity of the infamous "Torgsins" during the famine in 1932-1933.
Origin of the mysterious abbreviation "Torgsin" in Russian is little known today. But for people exhausted by famine and mass repression it has a paradoxical connotation: "Comrades Russia is Perishing Stalin Exterminates People" - TORGSIN (Russ. Торгсин - "Товарищи Россия Гибнет Сталин Истребляет Народ"), although the real abbreviation stood for: Trade with Foreigners. In the regional and district level towns, "Torgsin" offices appeared in summer 1932. A representative from Moscow in Ukraine administered these branches in Odessa, Kyiv, and Kharkiv. In summer 1932, 50 shops of this network operated in 36 towns of the republic. By June 29, 1932, the All-Ukrainian Torgsin office was established.
Starting from January 1932, Torgsin shop chain attended not only to foreigners (tourists, engineers, technologists, qualified workers, and sailors) but also to "Soviet citizens". One could buy bread, flour, and a whole range of food stuffs, not to mention clothes and such "colonial products" as tea, coffee, and citric plants for hard currency. The aim of the Torgsin system was to get maximum currency by providing services to foreign representations, tourists, and specialists that were building and working in construction projects to create the "industrial giants of the first Stalin's five-year plans".
The rates of sale and income of currency did not meet industrialization needs. The government didn't encounter the overall economic crisis and depression of 1929-1933 pervading the world as it had obtained "currency shower" from the export of grain. The government decided to find additional domestic sources of currency income by establishing the Torgsin system. Earlier, it had deprived the peasants of bread and any means for subsistence. They were forced to buy the grain, confiscated from them, by selling their gold (rings, ear-rings, other adornments, crosses and so on).

Thus started the "gold-extracting campaign" in the towns and villages of Ukraine, at par with grain-collection and confiscation. "During the reconstruction period of our national economy" - as it was mentioned in the People's Commissariat report in autumn 1932 - "when we would still be compelled to import different equipment from abroad, mobilization of effective currency within the country will play a crucial role, as well as the withdrawal of "household gold", that after the revolution lost its everyday and adornment sense (wedding rings, ear-rings, crosses, bracelets, etc) among their owners - they do not have consumer and use value; but gold has preserved its value, that is why it should be collected though the "Torgsin" system and turned to the service of the proletarian state".
These were rather strange criteria assessing the value of gold. It indeed preserved its value; it was the human life that lost its value, especially in the years of famine. Household gold (personal items), that was also called "scrap-gold", turned out to be of real value because of their ritual and symbolic significance. For people such gold items were sacred things and family relics, recalling events of christening, wedding betrothals etc. People protected and passed them from generation to generation thus joining the kin and increasing spirituality.
The number of centers of the Torgsin chain in Ukraine in the hungry 1933 was steadily increasing: in January there were 74, in July - 249, in August - 256 outlets. When they were supplied with grain, just recently confiscated in the villages, there immediately were long "queues of death and hopes". Foreigners saw timid peasants, half-mad from hunger and stopped going to Torgsin shops. "Customers" had first to hand over their everyday gold to exchange counters, where mainly former NEP-people-jewelers (craftsmen of the New Economic Policy period) worked, and then could receive "vouchers" or coupons, that is, the right to buy products in the Torgsin system shops. Money orders in foreign currency were received through this system from Europe, America, Asia, and even from distant Australia. To get this money people spent several months, and sometimes they died without receiving it.
During the years of famine 375 432 orders in the sum of 4.3 million of Torgsin Karbovanets were received. But this sum was scanty in comparison with the currency receipts from the sale of household gold. During January-April 1932 alone, two exchange counters received 374 kg of gold from people, i.e. smelting crosses, ear-rings and so on.
In the course of one working day, some exchange counters "bought" up to 800 grams of gold, shamelessly robbing peasants. They received gold of one grade of purity and in the records wrote absolutely different, thus getting very widespread in those days "Pripiok" or "surplus" - the difference between the quantity of gold received from peasants and gold handed over to a bank. "Pripiok" reached several kilograms. And behind each gram of that stolen peasants' gold was somebody's life. The whole Torgsin system paid the citizens considerably less for their gold, than it would cost on the world markets, making income out of "death".
Gold storage in 1933 differed from previous years of "gold and silver rain" by a diamond rainbow. In 1931, through Torgsin system 6 million of Karbovanets currency was sent to the treasury, in 1932 - about 50 million, in 1933 - 170 million, 75.2% out of which were precious metals - gold, silver, and platinum. Among them, the so-called "scrap-gold" constituted 38%, and coins of Tsarist mint - 18% out of the total sum of currency incomes. For each gram of gold peasants got 1 Karbovanets and 29 kopecks. What is more striking is the fact that out of 107 million Karbovanets received by Torgsin, the domestic incomes constituted 86 million. In 1932 they "extorted" 21 tons of gold and 19 tons of silver from the population; in 1933 these numbers increased and were 45 tons of gold and 1421 tons of silver respectively. Not only the peasants' pockets became empty as a result of such infamous way of gold and silver purchase, but their stomachs were left empty as well. Waiting near the Torgsin shops were employees of state food supply chain, who arrested "peasants with gold-valuables" and took away their freshly bought bread.
During the eight months of 1933, the All-Ukrainian "Torgsin" "extorted" currency in the sum of 25 million Karbovanets, of which gold and silver constituted 61.4%, and money orders - 26%. According to incomplete data, about 5 million people died during the years of famine in Ukraine. Therefore the price of one life of a Ukrainian grain-grower was 5 Karbovanets. In autumn 1933 when the quantity of gold brought by people to Torgsin shops considerably decreased, the government ordered buying out of diamonds. There was only one exchange office in Ukraine - in Kharkiv. Torgsin "specialists" offered 12 Karbovanets for 1 carat of defective diamond and 260 Karbovanets - for pure. In 1933 they sent abroad different kinds of "antiques" in the sum of 3.2 million foreign currency.
Peasants purchases in the Torgsin shops consisted of only bread and flour. Grocery products constituted 89% of the total goods turnover in the Torgsin chain. There was a secret instruction: "not to give promises to customers that they will soon get their products".
The policy of genocide, manifested by the famine, devalued human life, when in Ukrainian villages, engulfed by famine, people lost the fear of death and the sense of its sanctity, because they no longer buried the dead according to the appropriate Christian rituals. The Torgsin system, through which peasants were forced to give away their personal or so-called everyday gold in exchange for the same bread or grain, which was a while ago confiscated from them, strikes us with cynicism and scale of the satanic plans of the totalitarian regime in Ukraine.

Dr. V. I. Marochko

When Bolsheviks had wasted the gold stock of the former Russian empire and Anastas Mykoyan had sold off the jewelry preserved in the Hermitage, bread was the only remaining "currency" for them. Making full use of this "currency", Stalin with his semiliterate politburo jumped onto his grandiose technical projects as eyewash to the international community. So, what kind of projects were those? Groups of engineers working under the Russian tsar were either destroyed or repressed or announced "saboteurs" and were not trusted. Who were working in those projects? Among those numerous technical projects, about which bolshevists boasted as about their own in front of their nation, were:
- Moscow subway, first named after Lazar Kaganovych, and then, up to now, after Lenin, is an American project;
- "Dniproges" hydroelectric power plant is an American project;
- Kharkiv tractor plant is a German venture;
- Metallurgical industrial complex of Magnitogorsk is an American workout;
- The car plant in Gorky "GAZ" is an American project;
- The civil aviation fleet of USSR is a German project. Lufthansa supplied aircrafts in this venture.
Specialists from these above countries conducted all engineering work, the purpose of which was to introduce these rather expensive western technologies. But it were those hundreds of thousands of "builders of the bright future" who, having left their famine stricken villages, mixed concrete solution in bare feet and then wheeled it in a barrow to places of destination just for a bowl of soup. Bolshevist Moscow paid the West for the projects and specialists with bread and lives of millions of Ukrainian peasants. That was the cost of our silence.

Only in the year 1983 the Americans have finally ceased their silence concerning the Ukrainian Holocaust, and have formed a Special Congressional Commission to make further research on the Ukrainian famine.
Unfortunately, the Ukrainian state archives contain nearly no information on the fact that the confiscated grain from Ukrainian peasants was used as a currency to pay for foreign-aided technical projects. In spite of the fact, while working in the State Central archive, researchers of the Kiev "Memorial" Society have received a few notorious documents, which testify that when people in Ukraine were dying of malnutrition in great numbers, the Secretary of the Central Committee Stroganov reported May 8, 1932 to the Congress of Central Committee of the All-union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and Stalin about fulfilling the export plan of dispatching grain in April 1932.

And what did the Bolshevik authorities in Ukraine do at that time? Telegrams, signed by Kosior, October 20, 1932 contained an extra task for the following regions to dispatch grain out of Ukrainian boundaries:
- Vinnytsya - 7700 tones;
- Dnipropetrovsk - 20000 tones;
- Odessa - 16600 tones.
The telegrams, signed by Kosior and Chubar, dated December 11, 1932, contain a point that "the Central Committee and SOVNARKOM order you to fulfill the quarterly plan of export immediately".
The export of grain from Ukraine, planned by Moscow, was kept top secret by the Bolshevist authorities.
For example, "Data concerning the dispatch of thousand tons of grain for export" dated January-February and till the October 1932 (rye, wheat, barley, corn), and "Summary of data" on "the movement of export bread through harbors" (Mykolaiv, Odessa, Kherson, Mariupol, Berdyansk, Feodosiya) for the same year 1932, and other accounts are classified "Top secret". Such was the price for the grand construction of communism

Arthur Yeremenko,

representative of Kiev " Memorial" Society, Excerpts from a speech on "Organizing the upbringing of children in a patriotic manner in the educational institutions of our capital", August 28, 2003 in Kiev Palace of children and youth.

Political, legal and moral lessons of the 1932-33 Ukrainian Famine and genocide
Political, legal and moral lessons of the 1932-33 Ukrainian Famine and genocide
"Among political lessons of the famine - there is the policy of double standards of western democracies. Being well informed by their embassies and secret services about the scale of the tragedy, they just cynically (now we say pragmatically) turned a blind eye to the sufferings of millions of people.
Let us recall the export of Soviet grain (practically at dumping prices) to Great Britain, Italy, and Germany. Let us recall the unemployment situation in those countries. The then Ambassador of Germany in the USSR von Gerwart wrote: "some diplomats asked their governments to stop supplying industrial equipment to the USSR, while the Soviet government continued to doom millions of people to death as a result of famine. But Weimar's government answered that it was impossible due to unemployment in Germany. We recollect the mass demonstrations by Ukrainians in New York in November 1933 against the diplomatic recognition of the USSR - the country where such terrible crimes against the Ukrainian peasantry and intelligentsia had been committed. Information about those demonstrations appeared on the first pages of such newspapers as The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, The Sun, Sunday Mirror and so on - but was met with absolute silence on behalf of the White house and the Department of State.
And let us ask ourselves: Did our humankind draw proper conclusions out of our history, out of the Great Famine? The answer is - NO.
Stalin's criminal doctrine of the annihilation of class and national groups was perceived and practiced in different countries by different parties, and terrorist groups - starting from Nazi Germany to Cambodia, from Afghanistan under Taliban regime to Liberia, from Rwanda to Iraq, from North Korea to Somalia.
The weapons of famine have been used in a range of these countries, especially in those, in state of chaos and anarchy.
In the 21st century the struggle for recourses, especially for food products and drinking water will increase.
In future as a result of global warming and climate change, population increase, and many other factors the struggle for grain would conceivably grow: Stalin's practice of total requisitions of bread (or grain) may be renewed. That is why the study of all aspects of the Famine, the sad Ukrainian legacy is so important to the international community.
Finally, the Famine was formally recognized as an act of genocide against Ukrainian nation on the highest state level (the President, Verkhovna Rada, and Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine). This became the basis for Ukraine's appeal to the UN with the proposal of adopting a special UN General Assembly resolution recognizing the Famine as genocide of the Ukrainian people.It would be unfair though to say that humankind has not made any conclusions out of this tragedy of the 20th century, when the range of totalitarian countries tortured and killed their own citizens. International Interventions and State Sovereignty Commission, created on the initiative of Canada under the aegis of the UN, have developed a unique document in 2001 - "Liability for Defense" in which the tragic events in Rwanda, Eastern Timor, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Liberia, and Sierra Leone were taken into consideration
The main principle of that document is that sovereign states will be held liable - if they fail to defend their citizens from disasters (catastrophes) that can be avoided - from mass murders, violence, and artificial famine. This is a very serious departure from the traditional viewpoint on state sovereignty, under cover of which, earlier, any regime without much difficulty could commit crimes against its own people.

Yuri Shcherbak, Ambassador of Ukraine

"Documents of the agencies of State Political Administration (SPA) of the Ukrainian Socialistic Republic (USR) of 1932-1933 are specific historical source requiring deeper research and analysis.
First, the documents were created within the depths of power bodies with punitive functions. Second, in terms of the gigantic scale of the famine, various offices of SPA with its broad network of agents and unlimited power were in a position to collect information about famine to the fullest extent or just falsify it. The third point is that nowadays researchers actually access one type of documents that were produced by the SPA. Their purpose was to inform the party organs of different levels - starting from regional party committees (rai-partkom) and ending with the Central Committee of Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine (CC CP(B)U). All of them are filed in the communistic party business correspondence and in 1991 were passed to the state archives.
The typology of this category of SPA documents are: Reports, Notes by direct line, Messages, References, Special dispatches, Summaries, Letters, etc. and their common feature - informing. Three hierarchical levels of creating these documents could be identified - district, regional and republican. They were determined by the structure of SPA agencies. Documents of the branch level, for example, of transportation authorities are rare. By their nature the materials could be classified into operational (special dispatches, notes by direct line, messages), informational (references, summaries) and analytical (reports, letters).
In 1989-1990, as a team leader of the group, making the first compilation of documents about the 1932-1933 famine. Cases of cannibalism noted in SPA documents were so much striking that we did not dare to put the concrete personal data of cannibals and have given only the first letters of their surnames: "the pauper F.", "the dweller of this village A.", "the kulak P.", etc.
These materials are also an important source in defining the administrative-territorial and geographical scale of the famine, and the level of mortality. They show the affected villages, village councils, districts, and give cumulative data for the region as a whole. These documents, bearing the stamp "Top secret", were circulated through special post service and were preserved in secret business correspondence. This was compulsory as far as the nature of the institution producing them was concerned, and also determined by the subject the documents dealt with, that was, famine, and divulging any information on famine was prohibited.
Statistics on the onslaught of the famine and its victims occupy a special place in the huge mass of SPA documents. A historian, demographer, regional ethnographer, or genealogist may find important wide-angled material here - from reporting a death of a certain person to cumulative data about the mortality of population.
The special functions of SPA as document compilers, high influence of ideology on societal life, and total concealing of this phenomenon of the Ukrainian reality - all these factors require today's researchers to closely, scientifically and critically analyze SPA documents as a historical source.
Logical criticism shows quite a high level of trustworthiness of the factual material in SPA documents. Facts are retrospectively put into historical context and arranged according to the real course of events of that time (moods against collective farms and actions of peasants, strikes of the workers, problems with foodstuffs, mass famine, departures in search of earnings, child homelessness, epidemics, deaths, cannibalism, etc.)
But the analytical and synthetic analysis of these sources shows the presence of doubtful, partial, and misinterpreted information; their etiology has both objective and subjective character. Facts and events are often interpreted and given in the light of professional functional duties, as well as from the position of part and class bias. That is why fully grounded dissatisfaction of peasants is qualified like "rigmarole", "anti-Soviet", "insurrectional", "in the style of Petlyura, the rebel", etc.
Leaders of SPA and party bodies were forced to recognize reporting imperfection and misinformation, especially concerning the spring of 1933. For example, the head of the Kiev regional department of SPA Rozanov informed the head of the SPA V. Balytsky: " The given figures have been strongly decreased, for the district bodies of SPA do not make calculations concerning those who were affected by famine, and even village council sometimes does not know the real number of those who died from it".
The secretary of one of the district committees of Vinnytsya region, informing the party oblast committee wrote: "We are not counting specially through our village organizations about how much people have been affected and how much have died from hunger…The data of SPA is also not total, they only cover 25-30% of mortality and swelling cases"[2, p.96].
A more careful analysis of the famine statistics of SPA gives some examples of direct falsification of data, where we can see a persistent tendency in decreasing the fatal consequences of famine. The SPA of USR has given a reference to CC CP(B)U, which contained some cumulative data for February-March 1933: Lack of food was noted in 139 districts and 738 settlements, where 11 thousand families are affected by famine, and only 2,5 thousand people have died from hunger. At the same time, according to the Kiev regional department of SPA, 12,8 thousand of people have died only in Kievska oblast.
This analysis is not exhaustive, because only one segment of the whole documental archive of SPA has been studied - information given to the party organs. The author expects this situation to improve, possibly when the reserves of the archive depositary of the Security Service of Ukraine will be opened."

Prof. (Dr.) R. Pyrih,
Institute of History of Ukraine, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Excerpts from the presentation, "The documents of State Political Administration of the Ukrainian Socialist Republic as a historical source for study of the 1932-1933 famine"

«There is something personal that drives me to talk about the Ukrainian tragedy of the famine, which took away my life time opportunity to see and be with my grandparents along father's line. In those unhappy times they were in the epicenter of artificial famine, in Liubashiv district of Odessa region. And they quietly perished out of emaciation, trying to save their multiple children, my uncles.
It was a wicked irony that their dear son, my father, at that time served as a commissar of provision storehouses in Turkistan, and sacredly believed in the advantages of the new life being created by the communist ideology. Even letters from his parents, that were mutilated by military censorship, in which chunks of text were cut by ink and one could read just two phrases as "Hello son!" with greetings from numerous relatives and "Best wishes son!", did not raise alarm and suspicion. Only during the vacation in summer, 1933, he found out the terrible truth when his few still alive relatives met him with silent black rags on the porches of desolated huts.
Plough, soil, bread - are the integral attributes of a Ukrainian since probably the times of Trypillia culture, the culture whose descendants we undoubtedly are and whose greatness we have all the rights to be proud of. But this devotion to soil, this idyllic harmony of a human being with land, when a grain-grower produces as much as he can consume (if you want, you can see an element of "sustainable development" in this) became a trap for the Ukrainian in the 30's of the previous century.
Eco-entity of the Ukrainian became the main, most precious power against the spiritless industrial model of a new system proposed by the Bolshevik government.

And when we talk about the phenomenon of Ukrainian famine, leaving behind our emotions, we see a huge panorama of deadly duel between two types or waves of civilizations - the old one - AGRICULTURAL and the new - INDUSTRIAL - reveals in front of us (as one can remember there was no famine in towns). The Old civilization could not but yield to the pressure of aggressive and predatory ideology of consumerism, and millions of victims of the Famine was a price of this defeat.
Isn't this the reason why the highly-industrialized Western world turned a blind eye to and obstinately ignored all signals of alert from Soviet Ukraine? Isn't this the reason why the world of immense consumerism conferred Pulitzer Prize to the venal journalist and silently agreed to reprisal over Ukrainian peasantry which did not fit into the framework of the model of a new world, and willingly accepted primitive versions of Bolshevik propaganda about the fact that "Everything is quiet (peaceful) in Baghdad".
That is why today, while organization of the famine by Bolshevik regime is recognized by us a crime against the Ukrainian nation, we must demand the recognition of this fact not only by the successor state of the USSR (in such case, we are making ourselves dependant on the favor of Russia - will it or will it not recognize this fact and risk becoming a victim of their international intrigues) but first of all by the international community, through the UN and the US Congress.
Let us ask another question. Did the Soviet system completely destroy the spirit and love of land and agriculture of the Ukrainian? No, it hasn't! Even Stalinist methods of annihilation with the help of collective farms met silent resistance of the Ukrainian peasant, whose personality was nurtured by hundreds of years of harmonious co-existence with the soil and land. Low productivity of the Soviet industrialized agriculture only reminded of the old idyllic times.
The Ukrainian peasant has survived this ill-fated war. Now does the independent Ukrainian state help them to remain on their feet? No, it doesn't. Moreover, it does everything to destroy and uproot from earth surface all historic memory and spirit that the Ukrainian peasant embodies.
Is it not for this reason that we have the state follow a policy of hushing up, ignoring and not informing the population about the results of the use of genetically modified organisms (GMO), in that way satisfying the interests and dancing to the tune of the multinational corporations? Is it not for this reason that our Verkhovna rada deputies, both those supporting power and those in opposition unanimously vote for anti-Ukrainian law about bio-security? Will we be able to defend our rights to the quality of life for our future generation? Are we really thinking of their health and health of our country?»

- Vitaliy Kononov
Excerpts from presentation

Commemorating the victims of Famine: the 1932-1933 genocide in Ukraine

The first collection of documents and materials "The 1932-1933 Famine in Ukraine: from the viewpoint of historians and documentary evidence" (Kiev, 1990), was published following a decision of the Central Committee of Communist Party of Ukraine. The text of this resolution dated January 26, 1990, admits that famine was "a tragedy for the Ukrainian nation" and "the result of the criminal policy of Stalin and people who surrounded him (Molotov, Kaganovych) towards peasantry" (p.3-4). In the light of this, denial of the very fact of famine by the current leadership of the Communist party of Ukraine has illogical and unfounded. Equally baseless are arguments concerning drought: addressing the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the first president of the independent Ukraine L. Kravchuk mentioned that in order to issue the book "The Year 33: FAMINE", the publishers had to rummage through the records of the Weather Forecast Center. : The book "Famine in Podillya: a book of evidences" (Kamyanets-Podilsky, 1993, p. 96-97) states: "Was there any drought in 1932? No."
Another book "The Year 33: FAMINE: National Memorial Book" appeared in 1991. The authors-compilers - V. Manyak and L. Kovalenko-Manyak - are the founders of the Association of Researchers of Famine-Genocide of 1932-1933 in Ukraine. The book contains 1000 eye witness accounts and evidences of famine survivors. "That was a outright genocide against the Ukrainian peasantry - an action that by its brutality and scale could be compared only to the criminal deeds of Hitler against humanity, with which the world became acquainted a few years later", - claims L. Kovalenko-Manyak in the publication (page 17).Various documents and materials of national and regional level in Ukraine speak about the artificial famine: "Collectivization of the agricultural sector and famine in Poltava region, 1929-1933: Collection of documents and materials". (Poltava, 1997); .

"The Black harvest: Famine of 1932-1933 in Valkivskij and Kolomatskij districts of Kharkiv region: (Documents, memoirs, lists of the deceased)" (Kiev - Kharkiv - New York, 1997); "The Portrait of Darkness. Evidences, Documents and Materials in two volumes", Book 1-2. (Kiev - New York, 1999); "The Famine: 1932 - 1933 in Pereyaslavshchyna". (Pereyaslav Khmelnytsky - Kiev - New York, 2000); "Famines in Soviet Ukraine (Works of the members of the Association of Researchers of Famines in Ukraine". (Kiev - Lviv - New York, 2003), etc. In these numerous publications the famine, which started in the early 1930's in Ukraine is comprehended as genocide against the Ukrainian nation. Majority of the above-mentioned publications were funded by Mariyan P.Kots, an American of Ukrainian origin.
A par with the printed materials, a movement of patriots-enthusiasts on this theme grew in Ukraine, resulting in the creation of centers of Association of Researchers of Famines in Ukraine, in the late 80s - early 90s. In many Ukrainian villages and cities memorial crosses were built to commemorate the victims of the famine, often they were planned and accomplished by the then Communist authorities of Ukrainian SSR. Crosses, memorial signs and monuments were placed in various places. September 11, 1993, a memorial monument was built not far from the town Lubny in Poltava region and a memorial sign on the Mykhailivska square was placed on the 60th anniversary of the Famine.
Memory about those who died from famine should be kept alive and everlasting. But the best memorial monument to commemorate the victims of this tragedy of Ukraine is recognition at the international level that the 1932-1933 famine was genocide against the Ukrainian nation.

- Oleksandra Veselova

"Ukraine intends to put forward a draft resolution in the 58-th session of UN General Assembly. This unprecedented resolution aims at obtaining the first formal condemnation of the crime of Stalin regime by the international community, admission of the fact that it was an artificial famine, a fact cynically considered unproved by some politicians till today. The draft resolution is in no way directed against any third country, its main essence is - to draw conclusions for the future and lesson for the whole humanity. We are negotiating actively with almost all countries of the world to support this initiative. However, strange as it may seem, not only Russia, with which we had had several sets of negotiations, appeared to oppose our case, but also the USA and some countries of European Union."

- Public address of the deputy of State secretary of Ministry of Foreign Affairs N. M. Zarudna at the roundtable, August 21, 2003