Korelsky, V. F. Fish, fishermen and fish industry in Russia / V. F. Korelsky. - Bremen : Krebs, [1993?]-.

The catch for 1976-90 was 10 million tons due to new fishing grounds discovered by Soviet research team. Thus, the main raw materials bases for our fish industry are inland waters, coastal waters, and the 200-mile fishing zone of Russia, the economic zones of foreign countries and the open waters of theWorld Ocean. There are more than 200 thousand of lakes, about ISO reservoirs with the water surface of about 30 million hectares on the territory of Russia. The total length of rivers which are of economic importance is 400 thousand kilometers. There are also a multitude of lakes. Russia also possesses large water areas, such as the Caspian, the Azov, the Aral seas, huge lakes such as the Lake Baikal, the Lake Onega, the Lake Ladoga, and many others. Inland waters make it possible to catch about a million tons of fish a year. Several decades ago, the fish traditionally caught here was very tasty (European mirror carp, pike perch, bream, herring, sturgeon, beluga, and others). When the run-off of many rivers became regulated and the majority of inland reservoirs were polluted by poisoned waters, by floating rubbish, etc., the productivity of inland reservoirs not only did not increase, but in a number of cases (the Sea of Azov, the Caspian sea) reached a critically low level notwithstanding all the efforts directed at fish reproduction. In many regions, we have lost the supplies of valuable species of fish that can be caught in a thick net, the unique supplies of sturgeon are under threat of extinction. Thus, the catch of valuable species of fish in the Caspian sea decreased 10-15 times, in the Sea of Azov 20-25 times. In this condition, the construction of fish factories, land reclamation and the production of commercial fish are of decisive importance. Russia possesses coastal sea areas as large as 4.8 million sq. km. About 2 million tons of fish are caught here. Large trawlers are used in these regions, because of the absence of small specialized ships. This is very detrimental to the biological communities and leads to a drop in the biopotential of shelf waters. Sometimes, immature fish are being caught with an impermissible intensity. Thus, for instance, as a result of a mass fishing of young capelin in the Barents sea, the stocks of cod feeding on this fish were almost exhausted. All in all, the stocks of the raw materials in inland waters and in economic zones of Russia yield 4.5-5 million tons of fish and fish products a year. At present, 37 percent of the 361 million sq. km of sea and ocean areas are within the 200-mile zones of the corresponding countries and are within their jurisdiction. It should be noted that the most productive areas of the World Ocean are the shelfs and their slopes, i.e., the outlying regions of the ocean with depths of up to 200 meters, which constitutes 7.8% of the whole area of the ocean where the catch makes up 93% of the whole fish caught in the world. Proceeding from this distribution of biological objects, the former USSR carried out active policy of signing bilateral agreements with foreign countries with the aim of using their raw materials. 2 4