After expelling the British from the Barents Sea, the fish day will no longer be limited
Cod caught in the Barents Sea will become more affordable for Russians, promised Vyacheslav Volodin. This will happen as a result of the State Duma denouncing the 1956 agreement between Moscow and London on fishing. The agreement allowed British vessels to fish in the territorial waters of the USSR and later Russia. Of course, the issue goes beyond just cod and concerns the consumption of any fish.
“Over the past 10 years, fish consumption in Russia has plummeted to a catastrophic 14 kilograms of live weight per person per year. This is what people ate in the distant 1960s,” lamented Alexander Saveliev, the head of the Information Agency for Fisheries, in a conversation with GORUS. – The reason is the high price. For example, last year, during the record Putin on the Far East, chum salmon in the Moscow region cost 540 rubles per kilogram. Not everyone can afford that.
In terms of fish, Russia is self-sufficient, continues the expert. The country is surrounded by waters of three oceans, 14 seas, and has over five million lakes and rivers: we have plenty of fish. “They buy it with great enthusiasm” in the West because it is the world’s best fish – with a unique set of amino acids and fats, as it lives in cold latitudes. In Europe, it is called “fish from northern seas, one of the last remaining proteins of wild origin.”
At the time of the last major survey by VTsIOM among Russians, cod was the fourth most popular fish. At the same time, annual consumption amounted to 9% of all fish, or 2 kilograms. Comparable to cod but slightly inferior to it were mackerel. Mintai, well-known since the Soviet era in the Ocean store network, outperformed it, as well as salmon and perennial herring. Consumers might be happy to buy more cod, but prices bite. Especially for the liver.
An express analysis of the assortment of Russian network stores showed the availability of frozen cod steaks at a price of 499 rubles for 600 g at “Perekrestok,” cod fillet at 336 rubles per half a kilogram at “Globus,” and cod tail fillet at 983 rubles for 550 g at “Vkusvill.” What unites these offers? They all offer Atlantic cod. The best, northern fish was caught by the British, and we are supplied with the remnants.
Descendants of Francis Drake
But soon this will stop. The descendants of the pirate, and later the captain in the service of Her Majesty, Sir Francis Drake, understood everything correctly and sounded the alarm. “Putin threatens British fish with fried potatoes: Russia declares a fishing war on Britain, banning our trawlers from catching cod and haddock in the Barents Sea,” read the headline in the tabloid Daily Mail.
It’s about the popular dish Fish and Chips on the islands. They eat it in the morning and in the evening in pubs. Fried in a deep fryer, it is essentially British fast food, an analogue of Russian potatoes with fish, which can be found in every canteen. According to the publication, only in 2023, British sailors caught over 560 thousand tons of Russian cod and haddock. This volume accounted for up to 40% of all fish consumed by the British.
A popular British dish is Fish and Chips
“The British market consists of cod caught in Russian waters, about 70%. They didn’t catch all the fish from us themselves; we also sold it,” explained Alexander Saveliev. – Moreover, the agreement on fishing did not provide for any clear payment to our country. But now everything has changed. Not through our fault – they imposed sanctions on us.
According to the expert, Russia should review all international agreements related to fishing and denounce agreements with all hostile states. There is an agreement with Japan, and with the USA – the famous “Shevardnadze-Baker Line,” which cut off vast fishing areas in the Bering Sea in favor of the USA. Talks about this are already taking place in the press.
“We need to sort things out with Norway too,” Saveliev emphasizes. – We dealt with them even in the harsh years of the Cold War, and now we need to put everyone in strict frameworks. It’s a complicated case there. Fish is born in our waters, gains weight here, and then goes to Norwegian waters. Fish is beyond politics; it doesn’t understand who is a friend and who is an enemy. For her, all fishermen are enemies.
“The English won’t die without our cod, of course,” says Leonid Kholod, former deputy chairman of the State Fisheries Committee of the USSR, D.Sc. – They will buy it as a commodity on the world market. In its time, the USSR was the pioneer of the ice fishery, krill, catching all of this in Antarctica. Now this fish is insanely expensive, but it is on the market. There is no vacant place in a sacred place.
Russia plans to ban British vessels from fishing in its territorial waters / Photo: Yandex
Saving the opulence
Back in the day, Khrushchev signed an agreement with London out of our Russian generosity, according to Saveliev. We need to realize the wealth we possess, not squander it left and right. However, of the millions of tons we extract annually, more than half is exported. And what remains is not enough to satisfy domestic demand. High export prices drive up internal prices.
“In August of last year, at a government meeting, Vladimir Putin directly, like a soldier’s bayonet, asked the Federal Agency for Fishery why fish consumption in Russia had collapsed, why it is twice below the Ministry of Health’s norm for healthy eating (28 kg), and what officials intend to do to rectify the situation? Presidential instructions were published to announce measures by February 1, 2024,” the expert said.
We catch a lot of cod, according to the former deputy chairman of the State Fisheries Committee. Both filleted and unprocessed fish are available. In Murmansk and Norway, fishermen unload cod for the Russian domestic market (relations with the Norwegians are complicated because we have mixed fishing zones). The question is about the price, coastal infrastructure, and incomes.
Cod processing / Photo: mvestnik.ru
Regarding the assessment of the Barents Sea agreement, according to Leonid Kholod, one should not throw stones at its authors, at least based on the presumption of innocence:
“There was confusion in 1956. Stalin died, Beria was removed, and Khrushchev came to power. But could the Bolsheviks of that time harm their country? The agreement was supervised by Vasily Kuznetsov. A member of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee. And he was never punished.”
The expert believes that the agreement could be related to some reciprocal agreement. Fishing or political. Or with some kind of court passage. Then the English had conflicts over cod with the Icelanders, so something could have been done “to lure them.”
“The agreements I’ve seen show that it wasn’t for nothing – these people brought everything home. Perhaps, with the collapse of the USSR, they simply forgot about the reasons,” says the former top manager of the Soviet fishing industry.
One way or another, one of the amazing and strange traditions of that period in the history of our country – the so-called fish day, strictly held on Thursdays (for the sake of saving meat and other high-protein products), will soon definitely be sent into eternity. One wants to believe that with the cheap cod, haddock, and other white and red fish, Russians, having driven strangers from their seas, will be able to eat to their heart’s content every day. However, not getting tired of it.
By Sergei Axenov