The square in front of the Belosaraysk Village Council is now decorated with a new monument — a three-meter sturgeon made of reinforced concrete upholstered with a copper sheet weighing 500 kilograms.
The monument evokes ambiguous feelings. Admiration, pride and… sadness. There was a time when the Sea of Azov was one of the most fish-rich areas of the World Ocean, and the Sea of Azov ranked first in terms of fish catch per unit area. More than seventy species of fish were in our sea — beluga, sturgeon, mullet, Sevruga, flounder, taran, rybets, hamsa, a huge number of species of gobies, and, of course, tulka. Once commercial fishing boats returning to the shore unloaded hundreds of kilograms of silver sea harvest. And sturgeons, like the one immortalized in bronze today, were brought in fifty a day.
«The fishery on Belosarayskaya Spit was famous for sturgeon extraction,» Vladimir Popovich, the head of the Meleki village council, explained to the MZh correspondent. — There was a so-called «caviar tent» in the former fish farm «Russia», where caviar was packaged and supplied to all corners of the USSR». But all of this was once upon a time… Now the head of the village council can hardly remember the last time he saw a live sturgeon: «… in 1997 or so».
Lately, even professional fishermen on fishing boats return only with a catch of bullhead. And even that is getting fewer and fewer. «I never thought that the Sea of Azov would be so empty,» explained Victor Dubina, a native resident of Belosarayka, who has been fishing since he was ten years old. — This concrete sturgeon looks like the one I once caught. That one weighed 95 kilograms. Now we will look at the monument and remember the old days.
Fishermen recall that once ships «filled to the brim» with sturgeon came from the sea. And then sturgeon fish became less and less. Even before the beginning of the 90’s collective farms in Belosarayskaya Kos were allocated a quota for catching the «king of fish». And then the sturgeon was included in the Red Book and it was forbidden to catch it.
The monument standing on the square in front of the village council was made by Zaporozhye entrepreneurs. The monument is intended to become a visiting card of the resort area of Pershotravnevyi district. «The monument will work for the image of Belosarajskaja Kosa,» the head of Meleki village council is sure, flatly refusing to say how much money was spent on the creation of the concrete business card.
Simultaneously with the monument to the sturgeon, the Alley of Glory for war veterans was opened in the settlement. The Meleki village council also plans to add the legendary Belosarai lighthouse to the list of UNESCO sites and put a mini-copy of it nearby.
«The vacationers coming to us Belosarayka should be remembered as the Homeland of big and tasty fish and seafaring,» the locals dream.
It is sad to realize that the key words in this article are «in the old days» and «to be remembered». Will it not happen that someday in the vicinity of the «forgotten city of Mariupol» a monument to the Sea of Azov with a laconic inscription «Here was the sea» will be created?
After all, in order to destroy this gift of Nature — warm, fishy, healing Sea of Azov — we, living on its shore, are doing everything possible.