Worcester & the World

In Worcester, Mass., the red flag flew over the city hall. Thanks to radio station WTAG, it was "U.S.S.R. Week."

Every week since October has been a special United Nations week in Worcester. WTAG decided that its special job should be to educate its listeners about the United Nations. Its resulting Worcester & the World project, under Program Chief David H. Harris, has attempted just that.

Harris got the whole city into the act. Last week, the windows of Sherer's department store displayed Russian costumes, handicrafts, Margaret Bourke-White photos of a Russian Woman Shock Brigadier, a Moscow streetcar conductor, Stalin's great-aunt. Worcester's Museum of Natural History put on a show of Russian posters. The Public Library plugged books on Russia. The Art Museum gave a gallery to Marc Chagall, Ossip Zadkine. Boris Grigoriev. Women's clubs listened to talks on Russia; school children heard about Russia, wrote themes on Russia.

WTAG was Russian virtually all day, all week. Its 37 musical programs concentrated on Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, Moussorgsky, Shostakovich and Prokofiev. Women listening to the Modern Kitchen program jotted down new recipes for beef a la Strogonov, flounder grecheski, pickled herring, borsch, and honey beet jam.* Speakers on WTAG's weekly Forum broadcast from Clark University were Russian Vice-Consul Stepan Z. Apresian and Cornell University's Professor of Russian Literature Ernest J. Simmons. The one radio stunt of the week that didn't come off was an address by Moscow Novelist S. Sergeyev-Tsensky; the vagaries of short wave kept the WTAG audience from hearing his "Dear listeners in Worcester . . .", but Moscow obligingly cabled the text.

This week in Worcester will be Yugoslavia's; next week, Latin America's.

*One lb. beets; honey; ginger root; almonds or hazelnuts, sliced. Wash, peel and cut beets into half-inch slices. Cook and drain. Add one cup of honey for each cup of beets and cook until thick. Flavor with ginger root and serve cold with nuts.

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