I. BACKGROUND 



The Republic of Georgia is a small 

 former Soviet republic with a total area of 

 69,700 km, or slightly larger than South 

 Carolina, located south of Russia and north 

 of Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan. 

 Georgia has a coastline of 310 km on the 

 Black Sea and three major ports: Poti, 

 Batumi and Sukhumi. The population in 

 1992 was 5.6 million inhabitants. 



The Georgian Fisheries Production 

 Association (GRUZRYBPROM), located in 

 Poti, was under the jurisdiction of the 

 Southern Fisheries Administration 

 (YUGRYBA), until the breakup of the 

 USSR at the end of 1991, but is now an 

 independent organization. According to a 

 YUGRYBA brochure, GRUZRYBPROM 

 employed 4,200persons in 1990; in 1988, its 

 output amounted to 63,500 tons of fishery 

 products. 



BMRTs were built in the Stralsund 

 Shipyard in the former German Democratic 

 Republic in the late 1970s. They were of 

 the ATLANTIK class; seven were delivered 

 between 1967 and 1972. 



The second series of German-built 

 BMRTs was purchased by Georgian 

 fishermen in 1980 and 1983 (appendix 2). 

 They were of the PROMETEI class, an 

 updated and larger version of the 

 ATLANTIK class. 



Finally, in the late 1980s, the 

 Chernomorskii Shipyard, located in the 

 nearby Ukrainian city of Nikolaev on the 

 Black Sea, delivered 4 PULKOVSKII 



II. FISHING FLEET 



Table 1. Georgia. Fishing fleet, by 



selected vessel capacity; 1993. 



Capacity 



Number 



GRT Average GRT 



Under 500 GRT 

 Above 500 GRT 

 TOTAL 



20 

 15 

 35 



2,910 

 44.763 

 47,673 



145 

 2.984 

 1,362 



Source: U.S. Navy, Office of Naval 

 Intelligence, 29 July 1993. 



Georgia currently has 35 fishing vessels 

 on its registry (table 1 and appendix 1) with 

 a total capacity of 47,600 gross registered 

 tons. 



The 20 vessels of less than 500 gross 

 registered tons (GRT) are most likely 

 engaged in the coastal fisheries in the 

 southeastern Black Sea. There is no 

 information on the activities of this fleet of 

 small vessels whose average gross tonnage 

 is only 145 tons. 



The high-seas fleet consists of 13 large 

 stern factory trawlers (BMRTs) and two 

 medium-sized ones (appendix 2). The first 



MERIDIAN-class vessels, each of which 

 had over 4,400 gross registered tons. 



The 2 ZHELEZNYAKOV-class 

 medium freezer trawlers were delivered in 

 1981 and 1982. Their deployment is not 

 known - they might be used for exploratory 

 and research assignments. 



III. FISHING GROUNDS 



Information on the fishing grounds of 

 the Georgian high-seas fleet of 13 large 

 stern factory trawlers (BMRTs) is not 



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