The city of Astrakhan on the Lower Volga boasts the only in Russia Museum of Sturgeon. Employees of the museum organized the sturgeon exposition after they saw that the visitors walked past aquariums with exotic fish indifferently but stopped by the ones with sterlet, beluga and Russian sturgeon, the species which Astrakhan had always been famous for but which many local residents saw in pictures only. Stories about caviar being loaded on camels in barrels to be sent to other regions sound unbelievable.
The museum exposition was put together by scientists of the Southern Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Astrakhan Technological University. Alevtina Popova, the museum’s senior researcher, has been studying sturgeon for forty years. “Now that the numbers of this rare species have dropped dramatically and catching it is allowed for reproduction purposes only, working on the museum collection has become a real pleasure because it has become possible to show how rich nature used to be and how people can restore these treasures”.
“The museum displays photos from a farming exhibition which took place in Paris in 1868-69, — Alevtina Popova says. – Thus we demonstrated the abundance of fish in Astrakhan in those days and how they went fishing. There were convoys of fishing boats with fish that stood by fish farms. On display are fishing tools, pictures of sturgeon varieties and rare printed material on fish. From photos visitors learn of the biotechnological process on sturgeon farms and of caviar obtaining methods and they can marvel at live sturgeon in the aquariums. We spent more than one year and a half to put this showcase together”.
For now the museum shows only 6 varieties of sturgeon. All in all, there are about twenty. Sturgeon is widely seen as a museum exhibit nowadays but the museum employees hope that their exposition will help to improve the situation. They say the most damage to the fish is caused by poachers, so they plan to expand the exposition with chapters telling of fish protection service and measures against poaching. And the museum workers are ready to organize excursions to Astrakhan’s fish farms in the near future.
The Museum of Sturgeon in the heart of Astrakhan is the world’s only live sturgeon sanctuary, a tourist attraction and a place to restore the rare species.
Konstantin Guzenko
The city of Astrakhan on the Lower Volga boasts the only in Russia Museum of Sturgeon. Employees of the museum organized the sturgeon exposition after they saw that the visitors walked past aquariums with exotic fish indifferently but stopped by the ones with sterlet, beluga and Russian sturgeon, the species which Astrakhan had always been famous for but which many local residents saw in pictures only. Stories about caviar being loaded on camels in barrels to be sent to other regions sound unbelievable. 
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