Castro. The Cuban missile crisis delayed 

 somewhat the beginning of construction, but 

 after the U.S. naval blockade was lifted, 

 excavations began and the Havana Fishing 

 Port was officially opened on 26 July 1966, 

 the seventh anniversary of Castro's rise to 

 power. 



III. VESSEL CONSTRUCTION 



The Russian fishery fleet, inherited from 

 the Soviet register, was constructed both in 

 foreign and domestic shipyards. During the 

 first decade after the end of World War II, 

 the priority emphasis was on the construction 

 of vessels for the Red Navy. When the 

 Soviet Government decided to expand its 

 fishing operations southward into the Atlantic, 

 the Ministry of Fisheries could not obtain a 

 sufficient number of vessels from domestic 

 shipyards and began to make large purchases 

 abroad. It was only natural that the USSR's 

 first orders were placed in the neighboring 

 countries of Finland, East Germany and 

 Poland. Later on, many West European 

 countries also built fishery vessels for the 

 Soviet Union. 



A. Domestic Shipyards 



The former Soviet Union had at least one 

 shipyard to build or repair fishing vessels in 

 most of its major ports, and in many of its 

 minor ones (appendix 6). Several shipyards 

 had both a construction and a repair section. 

 These shipyards built over 50 classes of high- 

 seas fishing vessels (appendix 7) for the 

 Soviet fleets, the fishing fleets of Eastern 

 Europe and other countries. 



The authors have not carefully followed 

 the construction of Soviet fishery vessels in 



domestic shipyards, simply because it is too 

 time-consuming an effort. From recent 

 publications, the construction at two of the 

 above-listed shipyards is cited below. These 

 are simply illustrations of the fishery vessel 

 construction still taking place in Russian 

 shipyards. Complete information on Russian 

 additions would have to be obtained from the 

 Russian Committee on Fisheries. 



In April 1993, the KIROV Shipyard in 

 Khabarovsk completed the 9 1st vessel in a 

 series of refrigerated transports that the 

 shipyard has been producing for the last 20 

 years. The vessels are constantly being 

 upgraded and the latest are equipped with 

 satellite communication and other 

 sophisticated equipment. The new vessel is 

 going to the port of Vladivostok. The 

 Shipyard plans to build 5 more refrigerated 

 transports and 2 medium fishing vessels in 

 1993."* 



The Volgograd Shipyard on the Volga 

 River recently completed a medium 

 refrigerated trawler, the Avachinsky, for 

 Kamchatka fishermen. The vessel will be 

 based in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskii (which 

 has been steadily receiving new fishing 

 vessels as replacements for the Kamchatka 

 fishing fleet) and will fish for Alaska pollock. 

 In 1991, this Shipyard also completed the 

 seiner-trawler, Dmitri Shevchenko for the 

 Nadibaidze Seiner Fleet in Primorye.'^ 



In 1992, in response to the end of the 

 Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet 

 Union, Russia planned to decrease its 

 military, while increasing its civilian 

 (including fishing vessels) shipbuilding 

 production.'* An example of this trend was 

 recently described in the Vladivostok media: 



101 



