I. BACKGROUND 



The Russian Federation (Russia), 

 formerly known as the Russian Soviet 

 Federated Socialist Republic, is the largest 

 country in the world. Its total area, 

 encompassing 17.1 million square kilometers, 

 borders on China, Mongolia, North Korea, 

 Finland, Norway, Poland (Kaliningrad 

 Oblast), and the former Soviet republics. 

 Russia has a coastline of 37,653 kilometers, 

 and its maritime boundaries are adjacent to 9 

 seas and 2 oceans. Its population of over 150 

 million people in July 1992 is among the 

 largest in the world. 



Russia's fishing industry represents only 

 a small fraction of the country's huge 

 economy, but it nonetheless produces 

 commodities worth billions of dollars.' 

 Fisheries production provides an important 

 source of protein to the population as well as 

 much-needed hard currency earnings. The 

 Russian fishing industry is mainly based in 

 the Far East (Vladivostok, Nakhodka, 

 Madagan, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskii and 

 Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk ports), but about 20 

 percent of the catch is landed in the North 

 (ports of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk), in the 

 West (St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad ports), 

 and in the South from Astrakhan on the 

 Caspian Sea to Novorossiisk port on the Black 

 Sea. 



II. FLEET 



A. Historic Background 



The Russian people have been engaged in 

 marine fisheries for centuries. In Czarist 

 Russia, before World War I, the 1913 



fisheries catch exceeded one million metric 

 tons (t), one of the largest fishery harvests in 

 the world at that time. Following the 1917 

 Revolution and the ensuing civil war, Russia's 

 fishing industry suffered severe setbacks, and 

 by 1920 only 260,000 metric tons of fish, 

 shellfish, and other aquatic products were 

 landed. The new communist regime, 

 however, began to mechanize the outdated 

 fishing fleet by introducing powered craft. 



Pre-World War II: The Revolutionary 

 Government established its first fisheries 

 administration in March 1920 and provided it 

 with 12 fishing vessels — converted 

 minesweepers. During the First Five- Year 

 Plan (1928-32), the establishment of a trawler 

 fleet in the Barents Sea was given priority. 

 These programs were successful and by 1936 

 the Soviet Union's fisheries catch peaked at 

 1 ,600,000 tons. Further modernization of the 

 fishing fleet and increasing catches were 

 programmed for the second and third five- 

 year plans, but Stalin's purges in the late 

 1930s stalled the rapid growth in all Soviet 

 economic sectors, including fisheries." 



The Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 

 June 1941 interrupted any further progress in 

 developing the fishing industry. Most Soviet 

 fishing vessels were sunk or disabled by 

 German air or naval actions. The losses were 

 especially severe in the Caspian and Black 

 Sea fleets during the 1942 and 1943 German 

 offensives. The northern Barents Sea fishing 

 fleet, based in Murmansk, was also 

 decimated. Only in the Far East, where the 

 Soviets were not engaged in military 

 operations until 1945, did a small and 

 antiquated fishing fleet remain intact. When 

 World War II ended in 1945, over 5,000 

 fishing vessels had been either sunk or 

 extensively damaged. 



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