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“The shorter the deck, the longer the ruble” A trip across Sakhalin, Russia’s fishing island region

Source: Meduza
Photo: Oleg Klimov

The Sakhalin region stretches across 59 islands off the eastern coast of Russia. Most of these islands came under Soviet jurisdiction in September 1945, following an agreement drawn up at the Potsdam peace conference after the end of World War II. In the 1940s, about 300,000 Japanese citizens repatriated to Japan from Sakhalin and from the Kuril islands, while the number of Soviet residents grew from 70,000 to 450,000 people. Today, island residents lead a tough life mostly based around fishing, selling to markets in Russia and Japan. The disagreement over which country owns these territories continues to this day. Photographer Oleg Klimov spent the spring months in the Sakhalin region this year, and Meduza presents his photo series about fishing in the region.

Fishing boat Number 49. Bogdan Khmelnitsky volcano. Iturup island.

Photo: Oleg Klimov

Fishing codfish and pollock is very profitable, with a profit margin reaching 50 percent. This profit rate is comparable to oil and natural gas extraction in the region. Sakhalin exports only oil, gas, and fish.

A fisherman on Fishing boat Number 49 prepares a net.
Photo: Oleg Klimov

A total of 705 thousand tons of fish were fished in Sakhalin in 2014, which is 54 thousand tons less than the previous year (statistics from the regional Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography).

A fisherman cuts the gills of a fish and throws it into the cargo hold. Fishing boat Number 49. Off the shore of the Kuril Islands.
Photo: Oleg Klimov

Сatch is shrinking because there are less fish in the sea, according to scientists from the Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography. Fishing quotas count the number of fish which make it to the canning factories, not the number of fish caught.

Recovering the net. Fishing boat Number 49. Kuril islands.
Photo: Oleg Klimov

As a result, statistics show that the amount of fish caught exceeds the quota by nearly 300 percent, according to Vladivostok’s ecological analysts.

A fisherman throws a sting ray back into the water after it accidentally got caught in the nets. The number of each kind of fish is restricted by quotas, and the sting ray is taking up the place of another fish on the fishing boat. Fishing boat number 47. Off the shore of the Kuril Islands.
Photo: Oleg Klimov

Only the captain actually “fishes” on a fishing boat. The rest merely help him. A lucky captain can catch a lot of fish, and everyone on the fishing boat profits.

The cargo hold on a boat full of fish.
Photo: Oleg Klimov

After the scoop is taken to the factory, people who process the fish on the shore also get a lot of money. If there is an external contractor involved in the process, the people processing the catch make less of a profit.

A junior mechanic on the boat.
Photo: Oleg Klimov

There are two types of workers on the islands, the “shore workers” and the “sea workers.”

Boat refrigerator.

Photo: Oleg Klimov

“Sea workers” are most often local residents.

Fish processing on the Iturup island.
Photo: Oleg Klimov

A lot of seasonal workers come to make easy money from all over Russia, the post-Soviet space, China, and other island states in the Pacific. They mostly work on the shore, as shore work doesn’t require any special training.

Fish packing on the Shikotan island.
Photo: Oleg Klimov

Guest workers on the Kuril Islands mostly work on “cleaning the fish.” The local population has a largely negative attitude towards the guest workers. Yet most of the people who live on the Kuril Islands are actually migrants themselves.

As the boat travels from one fishing spot to another, the fisherman can take a nap. Fishing boat Number 49. Off the shore of the Kuril Islands.

Photo: Oleg Klimov

“Sea workers” make a lot more money than “shore workers,” but everything depends on the “tail count” — the size of the catch.

On breaks, as the boat travels to another fishing spot, fisherman sometimes play dominoes or cards.
Photo: Oleg Klimov

Fisherman often say, “the shorter the deck, the longer the ruble.” This means that smaller fishing boats have less men on board, so every person gets a bigger “tail count” and more profit. But this isn’t always the case.

A repair shop for small fishing boats on the Iturup island.
Photo: Oleg Klimov

Small fishing boats (20-25 meters, or 65-80 feet loog) sell one kilogram of pollock for 5 to 7 rubles (about $0.10). Larger boats sell the same amount of fish for 1.5 to 2.5 rubles per kilogram ($0.03 to $0.04). But smaller boats don’t catch more than three tons of fish per day and divide the profit between 5 to 7 people, while bigger boats can catch 30 or more tons per day and divide the money between 16 and 25 people. So the “length of the ruble” really depends not on the length of the deck, but rather on how good the catch is.

Crab merchant. Vzmorye village in Sakhalin region.

Photo: Oleg Klimov

Any fishing company, even poachers, aim to sell their catch to Japan, Korea or China rather than to Russia. This is much more profitable. At the same time, seafood in Sakhalin stores costs at least as much as seafood in notoriously expensive Moscow.

At the lighthouse near Nevelsk in Sakhalin.
Photo: Oleg Klimov

Sakhalin still depends on coal for heating, even though a lot of gas is extracted in the region and exported to nearby areas like Japan.

Ferry stop. City of Poronaisk, Sakhalin.
Photo: Oleg Klimov

Because of outdated infrastructure in towns and villages, some of the region’s residents don’t get hot or cold water, and every summer there are drastic water shortages.

Residents of the town of Kholmsk in the center of the city. Sakhalin region.
Photo: Oleg Klimov

The islands don’t get much sun. Summers are short, and sometimes there is snow is June. That’s why the residents try to spend every sunny day on the beach.

Military funeral at an old Japanese cemetery. Iturup Island.

Photo: Oleg Klimov

Some of the islands don’t have cemeteries or any kind of burial spots, and locals bury their dead on top of old Japanese burials. They replace the Japanese headstones with Orthodox Christian crosses.

Stairway on Iturup island, leading to a tsunami safe zone.
Photo: Oleg Klimov

The state and businesses are engaging in two contradictory development schemes for the island region: the state scheme involves improving the infrastructure in order to provide people with a higher standard of life, as was planned by the USSR after 1945. The business scheme involves turning the islands into work outposts where hired workers would be brought for a short period of time. Another development plan, which does not have many supporters today, involves giving the Kuril Islands to Japan.

A Navy officer in front of a mural depicting an American city at a store. Shikotan island.

Photo: Oleg Klimov

In 1994, after an earthquake destroyed 80 percent of Shikotan’s buildings, residents of the island were given the opportunity to leave Shikotan and choose whichever place they wanted to live in either Russia or Japan. Japan was to pay for their relocation and for rebuilding the island’s infrastructure.

Krabozavodskoe village, Shikotan island.
Photo: Oleg Klimov

No referendum was ever held on the islands, but almost every Shikotan resident wrote a request to the Japanese government asking to leave the island on Japan’s conditions. The island’s administration is still holding onto these requests, but this history is silenced. Eventually, Russia erected new infrastructure on the island.

A man catches fish on the seashore. Near the Vzmorye village in Sakhalin.
Photo: Oleg Klimov

The Russian government kept its promises and erected temporary barracks, and then replaced them with sturdy homes, which were mostly meant for military servicemen and border control officers serving in the region. However, Sakhalin residents remain great patriots of their island region.

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