460 
on the counters of even the large stores of Leningrad. The situation 
is the same in Kiev and other cities. 
This is why employees of the fishing industry propose transferring 
wholesale fish marketing to the Soviet Fisheries Ministry. 
There is a second problem of no little importance. Definite, per- 
manent areas for marketing the products must be assigned to each 
regional fisheries administration. Such a measure would prevent 
crossed shipments which cost the state dearly. Today it is not in- 
frequent that, for example, silver hake is sent to the Ukraine from 
Vladivostok, and into Siberia from Black Sea ports. 
If specific marketing zones are assigned, we would eliminate ship- 
ments of fish products to one point simultaneously from different 
regions. Fishery regional managers would have a better possibility 
to study consumer demand and the market situation, and organize 
advertising for marine fish. And, finally, contracts could be made 
firmer. 
As long ago as 1964 the author * of this article raised the question 
on the pages of ‘‘Ekonomicheskaia Gazeta” of eliminating crossed ship- 
ments of fish and assigning specific areas to the fishery basins for 
marketing fish products. At that time the Ministry of Trade was able 
to convince us that such actions would not have been expedient. 
It may be that such a solution was premature. However, regionalization 
of the shipments is necessary now. 
APPENDIX 2 
‘‘Fish”’ Suffering (‘‘Rybnye”’ stradaniia) from Ekonomicheskaia gazeta 
No. 49, December 1974. 
The fate of fish catch while on board vessels or during the unloading 
from the vessels is placed, as is well known, under the complete 
and unconditional control of the Ministry of Fisheries of the U.S.S.R. 
At the Il’ichevsk fishing port Chernomorrybpromsbyt (Black Sea 
Fishery Marketing Organization), under the same ministry receives 
the caught and frozen fish and transfers it, again in complete uncondi- 
tional control, to another agency. So as not to burden the readers 
with superfluous details, let us name only a few of the esteemed 
trading agencies engaged in this tedious work: Glavprodtorg Mintorga 
U.S.S.R. (Main Administration for Commercial Products Trade of the 
U.S.S.R. Ministry of Trade), Ukrmiasorybtorg Mintorga U.S.S.R. 
(Ukrainian Meat and Fish Trade Administration of the Ukrainian 
Ministry of Trade), regional (oblast’) meat and fish markets, and 
stores. 
Everything would be fine, if only something bad didn’t happen. 
For example, a train barely departs from Vinnitsa with marine fish 
when thunder and lightning resound from there—a telegram “Please 
do not send the frozen scad—we can’t accept or pay for 
it—overstocked!”’—signed Miasotorg Aza. 
A train hadn’t even succeeded in getting up speed toward 
Dnepropetrovsk when a humble request flies from there: “Don’t load 
the hake, scad, mackerel or canned fish for the Dnepropetrovsk com- 
bine. We can’t pay. Babentsov.”’ 
* Source: Efimov, P. ‘‘An Acute Problem”, ‘‘Ekonomicheskaia Gazeta’ No. 23 (June 1972) p: 14. 
Translated from Russian by JPRS. P. Efimov is Chief of the Fish Marketing Administration of the 
Northern Fisheries Administration (Sevrybsbyt) in Murmansk. 
