DUSHANBE, September 4, 2008, Asia-Plus  -- The first edition of a new social-political newspaper, entitled SSSR , is expected to be issued on Tajikistan’s Independence day, which is marked on September 9.  

The founder and editor-in-chief of the new publication Sayof Mizrob said that the weekly will cover political events both inside the country and abroad.  

“The main objective of the newspaper is the coverage of events having taken place in the country over the past 80 years,” said the SSSR editor.  “Time has come to assess history of the Tajik Soviet Social Republic, losses and achievements of the Tajik people over this period.”  According to him, the first edition of the weekly will contain materials about the ancient cities of Samarqand and Bukhara.

“We still have live witnesses and contemporaries of those events and it is necessary to find answer to questions that decided Tajik people’s destiny during different periods,” Mizrob said. 

The first edition of the Dushanbe weekly SSSR will have the circulation of 1,200-1,500 copies.

Sayof Mizrob noted that the newspaper’s name is not the Russian abbreviation of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics and that who solve the abbreviation first will be awarded trip to Moscow.  The contest will last till September 9, 2008.