They threw it ashore

Federal officials banned the traditional fishing of the Karelians on Vedzloser

Local fishermen gathered in the Karelian village of Vedlozero to sign a petition to the federal authorities demanding to allow amateur fish fish on their lake. The situation on one of the large reservoirs of the Western fisheries basin was absurd: the Karelians living along its shores traditionally were engaged in fishing, and now they can catch fish in the head only for the bait.

The rules of fishing in the country are established by the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia, and he forbade amateur fishermen to use any fishing gear on the lake, except for a regular hook. At the same time, the federal center is quite satisfied with industrial fishing on Vedzloser.

"Not a business, but the basis of life"

According to Vedlozersky activist Natalia Antonova, who acted as one of the organizers of the fishing assembly, local residents call the rules more than ten years ago Dragonovsky.

“During the action of these rules, a whole generation of men has grown in the Vedzloser, who either embarked on the path of conscious poaching, fishing with a voice and stealthily, or completely divorced from the fishing, forgetting the taste of their fish and turning on to sushi with a coal. You need to understand that those who are now over 30 years old, that is, men in the prime of life, young villagers have already grown up and live on these rules. We go to the destruction of the remnants of Karelian places and local culture with seven-mile steps, and the local population is more and more demoralized, ”Antonova said at a meeting where deputies of the Karelia Legislative Assembly, representatives of the Republican Ministry of Agriculture, as well as the Karelian branch of the All-Russian Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography.

As noted by the former head of the Vedlozersky rural settlement, Viktor Efremov, the current state of affairs is humiliating for the indigenous population of Vedloser, for whom fishing is a way of life and the basis of nutrition.

“For us, fishing is not a business, but the basis of life. Moreover, we declare that the current rules that have supposedly good intentions to preserve water ecosystems, in fact, on the contrary, criminalized any fishing, aggravated poaching and corruption on Lake Vedlozero, led to the facts of the violent use of the lake by individuals and companies. For many years in a row, the local population, already during the operation of the rules, participated in the clearing of the lake from networks often left in large quantities by visiting non -explosive fishermen, ”Viktor Efremov read the petition of the residents of the Vedlozersky settlement to the Minister of Agriculture of Russia Dmitry Patrushev, the speaker of the Karelian Parliament, Elissan Shanovovich and the head North-Western Directorate of Rosrybolovstvo Alexander Khristenko.

About three hundred people who signed this appeal demanded that the federal and republican authorities allow the general fishing for the local population on the head and to stop industrial fishing to preserve the resources of the reservoir.

Left without "water bread"

Vedlozersky Karelians were supported at the Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Karelian Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. On the eve of the meeting of Rybakov, the director of the institute Olga Ilyukh sent to the rural activists a note “On the significance of the traditional fishing for the local population of Vedloseria”, in which she noted the need to maintain the right of indigenous residents to a traditional lifestyle and the method of management.

“It has long been a significant share of the food needs of the local population by fish consumed. With a shortage of agricultural products, the fish served as a great help in providing the population with food. The Karelians even had a stable expression of Veden Vilja - “water/water bread”, indicating the significance of fish in the culture of nutrition.

The fish as an important food product was treated respectfully: Karel, for example, never allowed himself to move his foot with a fish basket in a boat if it interfered, ”the institute director says.

However, the head of the Karelian branch of VNIIRO, Sergei Korkin, who came to the Vedlozero, immediately warned the locals that it would be extremely problematic to change the fishing rules for their lake. Korkin recalled that these rules are approved by the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia, and they are built on the basin principle.

“The Western pool is very large,” explained the director of the Karelian branch of VNIIRO. - He is not just Ladoga, this is the Leningrad region, it is Kaliningrad. This is a vast territory, and it is paragraph 25.3.1 for all amateur fishing of the Western basin, and it says that networks of all types are prohibited. Therefore, if I tried to help you now, then how do we formulate your proposal to allow the network? This means that in this paragraph, which I said, there should be “besides”, and then you are here. And then other settlements, which in the Western basin, will say: “Why only them? On what basis are they better than us? " And when a paper will come to the scientific council with a proposal to paragraph 25.3.1 to make changes “the networks of all systems except the lake are prohibited”, I think that the Ministry of Justice will say that this is discrimination. ”

It is noteworthy that both Vedlozersky fishermen and the deputies of the Karelia Parliament attended the meeting spoke up for the regions themselves regulates the rules of amateur fishing in Russia.

But representatives of the North-West Directorate of Rosrybolovism made it clear to everyone to understand everyone to clearly understand that in the current situation in the country this is impossible. Officials from St. Petersburg advised them to prepare proposals to change the rules of amateur fishing for the Western fisheries basin, emphasizing that these changes would be approved for a very long time.

There is no list in the list - not indigenous

One of the possible ways to solve the problem of amateur fishing on the Vedzlozer could be the official recognition of the Karelians to the indigenous people, especially since according to the results of the latest population census, they may well claim such status. He would allow the indigenous residents of Vedloser to get the right to traditional fish fishing, which is now actually banned. However, the rural activist Natalya Antonova fears that the bureaucratic path to the status of the root of the small people will take no less time from the Karelians than amendments to the rules of amateur fishing for the Vedelozer.

“Karelts are now 32 thousand in Russia, and in Karelia there are 26 thousand people, but we still need to get into this list of indigenous peoples,” Natalya Antonova noted at the meeting. - To get into this list, Vepses Karelia took 12 years with a more favorable political situation in the country and the republic and with a larger number of specialists who pushed this problem. Yes, the Vepses have this status, they create artels and fish in One, because they united, and they helped them get into this list, but they needed 12 years! ”

The Karelian activist herself believes that the powers to regulate amateur fishing must be returned to the regional level. From Karelia, it is better to see how to catch fish on Karelian lakes and rivers than from Moscow or even St. Petersburg.

“Until 2010, fishing licenses were issued in our local administration, their cost was quite feasible,” Antonova told the Novaya Gazeta correspondent. - The proposal that the issues of fishing are transferred to the regional and local levels are realistic. Today, industrial fishing is allowed for the creation of individual entrepreneurships for Lake Vedlozer. We calculated that the creation and content of this costs about 50 thousand rubles a year! And this is the only legitimate way to catch the family of fish with nets.

Moreover, the local population emphasizes that it is not at all against the organization of reasonable regulation and control of fishing, it just advocates preserving bioresources and the purity of the lake, for the opportunity to continue to live here in the status of Russian citizens who love their native village and lake. ”

Vedlozero -Petrozavodsk