The city of Astrakhan in the lower approaches of the River Volga hosts the Sturgeon Museum, the only one in Russia. Once the city was world-famous as the Russian “fish” capital, in our time it has not lost completely its former glory.
Earlier the museum building accommodated a fish exhibition. The museum employees noticed, however, that a majority of visitors indifferently passed by aquariums inhabited by exotic fish species of southern seas but stopped to closely examine sterlet, great sturgeon and sturgeon. It turned out that many city residents saw those fishes, which once made the glory of Astrakhan, only in pictures. In the past camels loaded with barrels of caviar delivered it to other regions, currently all this seems a cock-and-bull story.
The museum’s exposition was made up by scientists of the Southern scientific center of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Astrakhan State Technological University. The museum’s scientific leader Alevtina Popova has been involved in studies of sturgeon species for 40 years. Now that the sturgeon population has reduced and fishing for sturgeon is allowed only for reproduction purposes she finds much interest in working over the museum’s collection. She believes this is the way of demonstrating to people how rich nature had once been; she also hopes that people can be persuaded that to restore treasures of the nature is in their power. Here is more from Alevtina Popova.
In the museum’s exposition there are photos from the album devoted to the 1868-1869 agricultural exhibition in Paris. Several photos are enough to prove that fish was abundant in the region and to demonstrate fishing methods of that time. Changes are, no doubt, tremendous. There are no longer vessels loaded with fish queuing at fish processing plants. The museum also features fishing gear, depictions of various sturgeon species supplemented with relevant information and rare books about sturgeon. There are photo telling about fish breeding plants and featuring sturgeon fry and young fish. All these exhibits have been collected within a year and a half.
Swimming in the museum’s aquariums are one-year-old starred sturgeon, great sturgeon, bester and sturgeon fishes. The museum currently possesses 6 sturgeon species, in natural environment there are 20. Though for a majority of city residents these rare fishes are nothing else but museum exhibits the museum organizers hope that the situation can be remedied and are contributing to this effort. According to them, much damage has been made to sturgeon species by poachers. So, museum employees have plans for adding to the exposition materials telling about fisheries conservation and campaign against poaching. In addition, the museum’s organizers intend to sponsor excursions to fish breeding plants.
So, the museum in Astrakhan will not be only a keeper of the world’s sturgeon collection and the point of attraction for tourists, it is prepared to contribute to the effort of sturgeon reproduction.
The city of Astrakhan in the lower approaches of the River Volga hosts the Sturgeon Museum, the only one in Russia. Once the city was world-famous as the Russian “fish” capital, in our time it has not lost completely its former glory.
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