Riga's Children & Doves / Estonian Composer - Tales of Soviet Women Workers for Peace, 1951 #7

From the Soviet Press, 1951

Image: Lydia Auster, the Estonian composer, serves the cause of peace through the medium of her art. Her Song of Peace is one of the most popular in Soviet Estonia

A Soviet stamp honouring the VEF factory in Riga, 1969

Children and Doves:

On my free days I love to stroll through Riga's lovely parks and gardens, which are filled with laughing children and flocks of proudly strutting pigeons. Children and doves! What could be a more striking symbol of a life of peace! The gay voices of the children ring forth merrily. But even the most mischievous boy will not harm the birds. Instead he will take from his pocket some bread crumbs specially taken along for the purpose, and he will scatter them around. Then he will stand there watching the pigeons and smiling happily. He does not remember the war, he does not yet know that far away, beyond the seas and oceans, there are men who are plotting to drop atom bombs on the heads of youngsters like himself...

But their mothers remember and know a great deal. And often enough the feeling of joy at the sight of such peaceful scenes gives way to a bitter anger towards those who are now bombing and making war in Korea, and who are seeking to plunge the whole world into a new war. This feeling is shared by every Soviet citizen, no matter where they live and what their occupation. That is why all thoughts and aspirations are dominated by the idea of strengthening peace. It is with our labour that we are defending the peace.

I work as an engineer at the VEF Electrotechnical Factory in Riga. Our radio receivers and telephone equipment are known not only in Latvia, but throughout the entire Soviet Union as well. We produce them for towns and villages, for the great construction works of Communism.

Together with the rest of the workers in our factory, together with the working people of the whole Soviet Union, I too am standing on Peace Watch. By our tireless labour we are enhancing the might of our Soviet Homeland, the might of the Peace Front. Let our carefree children play and frolic in the parks and gardens, and let the doves keep on strutting without fear! - Lydia Sanders, Engineer, head of. the long-distance telephone department of the VEF Factory