Our sturgeon farm is located in the Astrakhan region, in the lower reaches of the Volga river. These places are unique for their unspoilt nature and cleanliness, and the fact that historically sturgeon species lived here.
Our sturgeon farm is located in the Astrakhan region, in the lower reaches of the Volga river. These places are unique for their unspoilt nature and cleanliness, and the fact that historically sturgeon species lived here.
Olesya Sergeeva has been working on our farm for many years. She is shouldering a large successful farm.
Having come to our team almost immediately after university, Olesya, despite her young age, from the very beginning of her career proved herself as a talented ichthyologist, then showed a high level of professionalism in the position of head of the product section. In the pool facility, small fish appeared before her eyes out of thousands of eggs, which after reaching a certain weight were sent into the wild to replenish the Caspian reserves.
Olesya is the life and soul of our farm and an attentive “mother”, whose love and care are there for more than tens of thousands of “children”. Therefore, no one will talk about the work of the farm better than she does.
Having come to our team almost immediately after university, Olesya, despite her young age, from the very beginning of her career proved herself as a talented ichthyologist, then showed a high level of professionalism in the position of head of the product section. In the pool facility, small fish appeared before her eyes out of thousands of eggs, which after reaching a certain weight were sent into the wild to replenish the Caspian reserves.
Olesya is the life and soul of our farm and an attentive “mother”, whose love and care are there for more than tens of thousands of “children”. Therefore, no one will talk about the work of the farm better than she does.
- Olesya, what is the pride of our farm and how is different from others?
- Our farm, without a doubt, can be considered exemplary among sturgeon cage culture farms not only in Russia, but all over the world. Growing our fish, we do not violate the natural biology of the species; we do not stimulate the natural processes with hormones or temperature. Our cages are located in the Volga flowing water, and the fish diet includes sprat and Caspian herring – that is what sturgeons eat in the wild. Talking about the scale of our farm in numbers, the area of our cages is more than 2 hectares, and the total weight of fish is more than 350 tons (in the numerical equivalent it is more than a hundred thousand individuals.
- Tell us about your "nurslings"?
- Beluga, sturgeon, sterlet, and bastard sturgeon live on our farm. There are over 5,000 individuals in our breeding stock today. The main part of the farm population is sturgeons, but the most valuable species is beluga. Still, this is the largest freshwater fish in the world, and our farm has about 11 thousand individuals of this species. For the first time females give caviar at the age of 16-18 years. This is years of hard work of our fish farmers, we save our stock of beluga. We have a special attitude to this fish. By the way, the largest beluga on our farm weighs 224 kg.
— What is fertilized caviar?
This caviar is, in fact, the future fish. We send fertilized caviar to other farms in Russia and abroad, so that on their farms, our fellow fish farmers could receive adult fish from eggs. By the way, this is how our company Volzhenka (www.volzhenka.com) appeared. In the early 2000s when we were entering the European market, together with our Italian partners we started to grow sturgeons in Italy, where we brought fertilized caviar from our farm. For many years, joint work on the maintenance of fish and caviar production has been conducted under strict supervision of technologists and experts of the Beluga Company.
- How can caviar be "humane”?
- Every season we practice life method for caviar extraction. Of course, there is a traditional method, and it is better described by my colleagues in the extraction facility, but we use the life method right here on the farm. This is really the most humane attitude to fish that can only be. We look after fish, wait for it to mature, do an ultrasound, and only when the fish is ready to give caviar, we extract caviar. This method is the most humane: this is how we keep the fish alive. Later, they will stay on our farm and will be able to give caviar again and again.
- Why do you love your job?
- The farm is my whole life. When I start telling people who have nothing to do with fish farming about what I can do, regardless of gender, age and other things, I sometimes just see a child’s delight! After all, the result of my work is truly alive! That’s why I love my job.
— How do you keep of so many individuals?
- Every fish on our farm gets a passport – just like humans. All individuals have their own personal numbers, which are put into their documents. This allows us to monitor the life of the fish, control their weight, health and other factors. In addition, passports allow us to claim that the fish species is the same as the fish we claim. Our entire stock is registered, which means our work is transparent.
