The rivers, lakes and territorial waters of the Soviet Union abound in fish. 

The vast fish resources of the country were practically untouched before the revolution. There were no packing plants to salt and preserve them and work them up. Thousands of tons of fish were wasted annually, as were also the valuable fish offal from which are now extracted medicinal and industrial fats, glue, fertilizer and other products. The fishers were exploited by the big companies and merchants and led a beggarly existence. 

Since 1929 the Soviet Union has steadily outstripped America, Great Britain and Norway in the size of its fish industry, which is now the second largest in the world. 

The old fishing centres have been developed and new centres opened up in the North and the Far East. The famous fishing resources of the Volga and the Caspian are now supplemented by the deep-sea trawling of the Murmansk and Far Eastern fisheries. 

Fish packing plant, Murmansk.