the adjacent states of Turkmenistan, 

 Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Russia. The 

 final delimitations of this sea are being 

 negotiated. Being a land-locked sea, no high- 

 seas fleet operates there. The Far Eastern 

 Regional Fisheries Administration 

 (DALRYBA) also remains intact and has now 

 become the most important fishing region in 

 the new Russian Federation. As much as 70 

 per cent of the total Russian catch is now 

 being harvested by the Far Eastern fishermen. 



The Russian Committee on Fisheries 

 employed an estimated 500,000 persons 

 before the privatization of some of its regional 

 components. 



The political vicissitudes of the 

 transformation of the former Soviet Union 

 into the Commonwealth of Independent States 

 affected the Committee on Fisheries as well. 

 In August 1991, the Soviet Fisheries Minister, 

 Nikolai Isaakovich KOTLYAR, and his six 

 assistant ministers supported the putschists 

 and ordered the captains of the fishing fleets 

 to follow their directions. When President 

 Yeltsin prevailed, Kotlyar was promptly fired, 

 the Ministry of Fisheries was abolished and 

 its staff transferred to the Russian Ministry of 

 Agriculture. Fishery executives, who were 

 used to policy and budgetary independence 

 and were very powerful in the old Soviet 

 Union, did not like the move and did all they 

 could to get from under the Ministry of 

 Agriculture. They succeeded and, in early 

 1992, the Committee on Fisheries of the 

 Russian Federation was organized as an 

 independent agency. Its staff, however, was 

 reduced from over 1,200 employees to only 

 about 400 persons. 



The Committee took over most of the 

 former Soviet bilateral and multilateral fishery 

 agreements. Of the 59 bilateral agreements. 



Russia carried on the privileges and 

 responsibilities of 40 agreements. Of the 14 

 multilateral fishery organizations to which the 

 Soviet Union belonged, Russia retained its 

 representatives at 1 1 . As one of the largest 

 fishing powers in the world, the Russian 

 Federation thus maintains a powerful presence 

 on the international fisheries scene. 



B. Fishery Attaches'" 



The Russian Committee on Fisheries also 

 retained 30 out of 32 fishery offices in as 

 many countries (appendix 10). These offices 

 are located primarily in coastal countries 

 where the incumbents play an important role 

 in organizing support for the wide-ranging, 

 distant-water Russian fishing fleets. 



The total number of Russian flshery 

 attaches and representatives is much greater 

 since most offices also have an assistant 

 fisheries attache or representative. Some (like 

 Tokyo, Oslo, Halifax, and Rome) have 3 or 

 more fishery attaches. All Russian fishery 

 attaches enjoy diplomatic status. They are 

 located in Australia, Denmark, Italy, Canada, 

 Norway, the United States, Japan, and 

 possibly some other posts. On the other 

 hand, representatives of the Russian 

 Committee on Fisheries do not have 

 diplomatic status. Both, however, remain the 

 employees of the Russian Committee on 

 Fisheries and receive salaries from the 

 Committee directly. 



The funding for this vast network of 

 fishery attaches and representatives is 

 provided by the Russian Committee on 

 Fisheries (formerly the Soviet Ministry of 

 Fisheries). It could not be determined what 

 the total budget amounts to, but it is estimated 

 at about $3 million. This includes salaries 

 and benefits, office rents, paid vacations. 



108 



