Some Fishery Research Stations in the USSR, 1969
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, LIBRARY 0, This series includes unpublished preliminary reports 150foRD Of CA*9 FISHERIES RESEARCH and data records not intended for general distribution. They should not be referred to in publications with- BIOLOGIC& STATION, out clearance from the issuing Board establishment and ST. JOHN'S, NEWFOUNDLAND, CANADA. without clear indication of their manuscript status. FISHERIES RESEARCH BOARD OF CANADA MANUSCRIPT REPORT SERIES No. 1091 Some Fishery Research Stations in the USSR, 1969 by W. E. Ricker Biological Station, Nanaimo, B.C. June 1970 This series includes unpublished preliminary reports and data records not intended for general distribution. They should not be referred to in publications with out clearance from the issuing Board establishment and without clear indication of their manuscript status. FISHERIES RESEARCH BOll.BD OF CANADA MANUSCRIPT REPORT SERIES No. 1091 Some Fishery. Research Stations in the USSR~ 1969 by W. E. Ricker Biological Station, Nanaimo, B.C. June 1970 CONTENTS Foreword 2 Moscow Days 3 Account of a Visit to Fish and Fishery Facilities at Volgograd, with Incidental Information 29 Discursive Account of a Visit to the Institute for the Biology of Inland Waters at Borok 42 Summary Account of a Visit to Kiev 57 Visit to the State Research Institute for Lake and River Fisheries, Leningrad 69 A Trip to Murmansk 77 News from Siberia 87 Visit to Georgia (Gruzinskii SSR) 103 2 FOREWORD From mid-May to mid-November, 1969, I was in the USSR as exchange scientist with VNIRO, their central marine fisheries research laboratory. At intervals visits were made to other research centres. A series of informal reports concerning these was prepared from time to time, and these were distributed to FRB stations and laboratories. Origin ally I planned to delete the extraneous material and assemble these into a formal report for permanent reference. Further consideration suggests that this would merely lessen their interest without increasing their value, so the whole set has been assembled into this Manuscript Report. The first section, "Moscow Days", which has not appeared heretofore, is a straightforward account of VNIRO and other centres in the capital. W. E. Ricker Chief Scientist Nanaimo, B. C. Fisheries Research June, 1970 Board of Canada 3 Moscow Days By W. E. Ricker 4 Moscow Days By W. E. Ricker Of my 6 months in the USSR, about 4 were spent in Moscow, mainly working at VNIRO. However I visited some of the other related organizations in the city, and got a little information about still others, either in the city or in parts of the country that I did not visit. Short accounts of all these are attached. Working time at VNIRO was spent partly in the library, partly in writing a couple of papers dealing with phases of population dynamics, partly in talking to the staff about their work and ours. Professor Andreev, who is editor of Rybnoe Khozyaistvo, asked if I might have anything to contribute to that journal. I suggested a note on Derzh~vin's "biostatistical method'' of population analysis, on which I had done a little historical research in the library, and whose strengths and weakness seem to be insufficiently recognized by both Soviet and western writers. Dr. Zasosov was good enough to translate it into Russian. Dr. Andreev apparently has okayed the manuscript and it will appear in the May issue of 1970. The material will be useful in any future revision of FRB Bulletin 119 or similar work. Another paper, on aspects of certain reproduction curves, was translated into Russian by Mrs. Nazarova of the VNIRO translation bureau. Dr. Zasosov would like to have it published in the USSR, but I do not know the present situation. It will be published in English in the proceedings of the Aarhus conference on Stock and Recruitment. -2- During all this time I continued to add to the stock of words in the Russian-English glossary of fishery terms. The present manuscript has about twice as many items as Nanaimo Circular No. 65. Visits to other research centres interrupted the Moscow sojourn from time to time. These are described in separate accounts. The map below shows the centres visited and routes of travel, also the locations of some of the aquatic research centres that were not visited. 6 -3- The Federal Research Institute for Marine Fisheries and Oceanography (VNIRO) [Vsesoyuznyi Nauchno-issledovatel'skii Institut Morskogo Rybnogo Khozyaistva i Okeanografii] 17a, V. Krasnosel'skaya, Moscow B-140 This Institute is located in the northeastern part of Moscow, about a kilometre beyond the outer or "Garden'' ring. It is housed in a large green building built around a former church, of which some traces remain in the internal structure. It shares these quarters with 2 or 3 other organizations, so that the accommodation is crowded. Like PINRO, VNIRO traces its or~g~n, in part at least, to Lenin's decree of 1921 that established the State Oceano graphic Institute (GOIN). The Moscow staff of GOIN was combined with an ichthyological group during the 1930's to form the present VNIRO. Formerly a number of the regional fishery institutes were regarded as branches of VNIRO--at Astrakhan, Kerch, Odessa, Riga, Tallin, Kaliningrad, Vladivostok, etc. These have now achieved or regained autonomy, which apparently involves getting their financial support mainly from local industry or local government sources. Only the Batumi station is still formally a branch of VNIRO. VNIRO personnel still work closely with the local laboratories at the operations level. One sector of the ocean that VNIRO concentrates on is the Antarctic, and their largest research vessel, theN. M. Knipovich, has spent several months of the past few summers down there (our winter). VNIRO is not only a research institution but can dire~t the work of students proceeding to graduate degrees. They have granted a number of Kandidat degrees (about equivalent -4- 7 to our Ph.D.) and within the last year or so have received authority to grant the Doctor's degree. This activity has nothing directly to do with the fact that a number of staff members have the title of professor. In the USSR the latter is an honorary title rather than one indicating a particular rank in university employment; many professors have never taught at universities. Another VNIRO activity is putting on training tours for foreign fishery scientists, as part of FAO's program in this field (other countries work similarly with FAO, of course). Some of these tours are within the USSR: Dr. Kask took part in one some years ago; others are on board research vessels. The present director of VNIRO is Professor Aleksandr Sergeich Bogdanov, a rather retiring individual of about 60 who at one time was welterweight champion of Moscow and is still active athletically (skiing, etc.). Shortly after the war he spent 6 months in the United States, and acquired a reasonable command of spoken English. He visited Canada in 1967 as a member of the Minister's party. Deputy Director is Professor Petr Aleksandrovich Moiseev. He comes from Vladivostok, where his detailed studies of groundfishes first brought him to western attention; he rose to be head of TINRO before coming to Moscow. During the past few years he put together in his off hours a 333-page compendium "Biological resources of the world ocean", published in 1969, that is full of useful informa tion. Dr. Moiseev visited Canada in 1955. VNIRO is organized into 5 Divisions (Otdely) of unequal size, plus an operations group (secretaries, translators, library, etc.). -5- 8 International Fisheries Division The staff is as follows, with some indication of their training and/or language specialty as far as I know them: Fedorov, Sergei Grigor'evich. Head (legal matters, English) Agapova, Tamara Ivanovna (English) Chevarg~n, Aleksandr Ivanovich (Japanese) Chubar, Margar1ta Teodorovna (German) Edel'man, Mikhail Solomonovich (oceanography, English -- on leave with FAO) Gusev, Evgenii Dm1trovich (English, Scandinavian languages) Kazarnovsky, Mark Yakovlevich (ichthyology, English) Kuvsh~nnikova, Natal'ya Ivanovna (secretary) Labunskaya, Natal'ya Aleksandrovna (biology, English) Ryazantsev, Yurii Bor~sovich (English, Spanish) Semenova, Ol'ga Nikolaevna (publications) Simanina, Greta Seraf~movna (English, French) Simbirev, Valerii Pavlovich (factotum) Members of this division keep in touch with foreign developments, make translations from and into foreign languages, and act as interpreters and experts for the Ministry on all sorts of official occasions -- receptions, negotiations, tours, commission meetings. Examples are as follows: (1) Fedorov is now USSR Commissioner for the Fur Seal Commission; formerly acted as assistant when Ishkov was Commissioner. (2) During the summer of 1969 there was an FAO Fellowship tour on board the Knipovich -- which sailed from Odessa to Rome, Casablanca, Havana, Vera Cruz and return. Mark Kazarnovsky went along, probably in charge of arrange ments; K1ra M1khlina from the operations group assisted with interpretation. Scientists included the Director, and Dr. Lyub~mova of the Antarctic Division, who speaks -6- 9 Spanish. There were of course non-Russians on the staff of the tour, and the Fellows were mainly from Spanish America. (3) In late summer a delegation went to the Commonwealth country of Mauritius (Mavritil in Russian) to negotiate for some kind of fishing or port privileges. Yuri Ryazantsev went as interpreter, and told me a bit about the country and the journey -- apparently it took them a week to get there, including 13 different flights here and there across Africa. The negotiations were evidently successful. Division of Scientific and Technical Information This is a small division headed by V. I. Muntyan, with G. V. Martinsen an active member. They scan foreign and domestic literature and prepare bibliographies that are distributed to the staff every 2 months or so.