The Affair of the Century, or, How Mister Didenko Spat in the Face of His Own Countrymen
Sergey Vakhrin, editor–in–chief, Severnaia Patsifika [Northern Pacific]
Which countrymen in particular? It’s now possible to list by name all those who were “sincerely misled”, “deceived,” or “not fully informed of what was taking place” (I don’t know what other justifying formulations the “victims” will come up with themselves), when a “Writ of agreement regarding permission for OAO KhK Dal’moreprodukt to use the PROCESSOR American Monarch instead of the decommissioned mother ships, Sovetskaia Rossiia and Dal’nyi Vostok, for the taking of pollock in Far East waters” was signed on January 14 – 15, 1998. They include Iu. I. Marakhovskii, general director of the Preobrazhenskoe trawl fleet, A.G. Bulenok, chairman of the board of Primorrybakkolkhozsoiuz [Primorye fishermen’s collective trade union], Iu. A. Arsent’ev, general director of AO TURNIF [Pacific Directorate of the Fishing and Scientific Research Fleet], N.V. Kovalenko, assistant general director of the Far East fleet, V. E. Rodin, assistant director of TINRO [Far East Fisheries and Oceanography Scientific Research Institute], P.P Churkin, vice president of the Primorye Seafood Industry Association, A. G. Nesterenko, president of the Primorye district local of the fishing industry labor union, A. B. Gordienko, arbitrage manager of OAO Primorrybprom, and many others, the majority or at least well over half of whom really had no direct relation whatever to the fishing industry, but were drawn into this agreement from the Primorye District Administration.
On July 22, 1998, A. A. Okhanov, the assistant director of the division of aquatic bioresources and fisheries development in the Fisheries Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, is signing two licenses, numbers 00326 and 00325, for the – now already, not processor but trawler–processor – American Monarch. The first of these licenses permits the following activities: “commercial fishing, including receiving and transport of catches of fish, other marine animals and plants, processed products made from them, and other cargo on ships registered to marine fishing ports,” while the second (which was issued first, if one looks at the numbers), is a permit for “COMMERCIAL FISHING, INCLUDING THE TAKING OF FISH, OTHER MARINE ANIMALS AND PLANTS.”
Thus was the processor American Monarch re–named a trawler. But that’s not all. On the same “historic” day, July 22, 1988, Dal’moreprodukt holding company sent this inquiry, Number 07–17–2139, to Kamchatrybvod: “In connection with the acquisition for rent by OAO KhK Dal’moreprodukt of the trawler–processor American Monarch under terms of a bareboat–charter, we request you to issue permission for the right to conduct a variable–depth trawl fishery for pollock, as well as to receive, process and transport the catch and its products in Kamchatrybvod management areas 6101 [typo? seems should be a 5–digit number] and 61022 from July 25 to December 31, and in areas 61051, 61052, and 61054 of the Sea of Okhotsk from September 1 to December 31, 1998. T/P American Monarch’s hull number is PB–0171, Captain–Director Aleksandr Ivanovich Bodakin.”
When did this miraculous reincarnation of a processor into a trawler occur, its appearances in Far East waters turning the entire “agreed–upon” situation on its head and reducing it to a cynical affair. We should note that even in the decree of the first deputy minister of the Russian Federation Ministry of Agriculture and Food, V. N. Shcherbak (Number 388, June 24, 1998) “Granting the vessel American Monarch the right to sail under the Russian Federation flag” the ship’s “right” to fish was designated, however ambiguously: “In connection with the rental by holding company Dal’moreprodukt under terms of a bareboat–charter of the FISHING vessel American Monarch (emphasis mine), owned by the company New Pollock L.P. Inc. and sailing under the flag of the Republic of Vanuatu, I order:
1. to convey to the FISHING vessel American Monarch (emphasis mine) the right to sail under the national flag of the Russian federation for the valid period of the rental agreement…”
There is not one word more in the decree about any other FISHING rights for American Monarch.
But all the same someone took the initiative and read this as a blessing for transforming the processor into a trawler. Who? And why?
However, there has long been a ready answer to the question, why. Dal’moreprodukt is chronically short of fish supplies. A war over ownership of marine resources in the Far East has been going on for a long time. In this war it is acceptable to win by any means. Precisely for this reason, Dal’moreprodukt president, Mister Iu. G. Didenko and his like–minded cohorts from the American company which owns American Monarch — which has been expelled for its “gigantism” from the economic zones of two countries, Chili and its own homeland, the United States — conceived of this AFFAIR OF THE CENTURY, when an opportunity turned up to “exchange” the old mother ships for a super–modern FISHING ship (even though Sovetskaia Rossiia is the only mother ship belonging to the presently democratic Russia which possesses unique processing equipment for pollock fillets). The truth is that they attached an additional, entirely different meaning to their understanding of “exchanging” the two types of ships – to substitute one with the other.
FROM THE BEGINNING it was clear to anyone in Primorye, WHAT Mister Didenko had in mind by replacing the mother ships with a supertrawler.
A supertrawler is supposed to catch fish. That is what it is designed and intended for. The American Monarch has this high–powered designation for a reason – if the fishing is good it can haul up to one and a half thousand tons of fish every twenty–four hours. It is the biggest supertrawler on earth. It is the best trawler–processor of all models known to carry eight super–modern processing lines, with finished products of the highest quality.
But why then, if his countrymen UNDERSTOOD what Mister Didenko had in mind, did they give their blessing to this affair all the same?
Well, on the one hand, let’s say, they acted from patriotic convictions – one way or another, Primorye would own the biggest supertrawler in the world.
Here, for example, is how Dal’moreprodukt employees themselves regard this acquisition, according to one information agency:
“Following a number of critical reports in the media (for example, the July 14, 1998 Izvestiia, according to which, in part, it was said that, “We’ll be paying the rent in pollock, 70 million dollars worth” – S. V.), which were opposed to AO Dal’moreprodukt’s use of the big processor–vessel American Monarch (98 meters in length, 8 factory lines) for fishing in the Okhotsk and Bering seas, the ship’s crew held an urgent meeting at sea. At the meeting, it was resolved to send an official appeal to the leadership of the Russian Ministry of Agriculture and Food and the directors of the leading newspapers, radio and TV stations. In its appeal, the ship’s crew denies the data that American Monarch causes serious physical and ecological damage to fish stocks in the North Pacific. The ship’s crew asserted that if the ship ceases its work, it will cause economic harm to Russia and help Russia’s competitors – fishermen from the U.S.A., Japan, China and South Korea. Dal’moreprodukt’s general director Iurii Didenko officially supported the crew’s appeal. Didenko declared that the volumes of the ship’s pollock catches fully accord with international norms.
On the other hand, according to the planned scenario, American Monarch should of course catch fish that come not from Primorye, but from other regions of the Far East, as is done by other work–mates like it in Primorye – the Spanish–built supertrawlers of the Super company, which siphon off a maximum profit thanks to their unique possibilities in the system of so–called “democratic” – (continuing the tradition of socialist) “Olympic” Games – in which they compete for fish on an equal footing with every other ship in the Far Eastern fleet, large or small. The Sea of Okhotsk is the usual sporting arena, and roe pollock is the puck or ball while Lilliputian “aesthetes” compete on the same terms as the Gulliver “supers.”
A much different depiction of this competition would, of course, be more accurate: the Gullivers and Lilliputians sitting around one common table, everyone energetically spooning up pollock from a big pot in the very middle, every man for himself! Gulping down servings of pollock, one after another, each as much as he can! And before the Lilliputians can even lick their lips, the entire pot is already empty! As everyone knows, as a result of this sort of “sports” competition, Primorye District is left with barely one hundred thousand tons of roe pollock stocks each year, but the fishing quota is not even allocated there, but to Khabarovsk, Magadan, Kamchatka and Sakhalin. But roe pollock is hard currency, money. Money for the Primorye District budget, and, shall we say, no small change. Therefore, the commercial interest of District Administration bureaucrats in this situation is obvious, and explains why barely half of the nineteen people who should have signed the Writ of Agreement actually did so. With the rare exception, most of these were bureaucrats from various administrative agencies, who signed, one and all, in contrast to fishermen, such as the general director of the Nakhodka Fishing Agency A.N. Kolesnichenko, who wrote his own separate opinion on the question, general director of AO Iuzhmorrybflot E.L. Golokolosov, and vice president of the Vostok–1 Fishing Collective G. A. Katkov.
And the answer to this question probably has yet a third side – certain leaders who had the naievete to trust the sincerity of Mister Didenko’s intentions.
Well, they got their punishment, too – the spit in the face was intended for them. But as the saying goes, there are four corners to every house, and since we are indeed speaking about something that happened in our common home, in this case there was a fourth side as well: those who did not sign the Writ of Agreement, who had their own opinion, who fought and are fighting against this American Monster and others like it. After all, there are dozens more such “supers” sitting in Seattle, waiting for their time to come to work in Russian waters.
Indeed glory came to them who fought – on July 28, telegram number 2229 arrived from the Russian Fisheries Department. It said, “Having considered the Primorye District Administration petition for AO KhK Dal’moreprodukt to charter the processor American Monarch for the sole use of receiving and processing raw fish comma also the resolution of the Commission for Fishing Licenses comma protocol 63 of 7/24/98 comma the copy of the fishing license including the taking of fish is hereby annulled no. 54 series PRK no. 000325.”
Victory!
But we too would be naive to think that with that, the whole affair is behind us. Does it await us, too, to go through what certain of Mister Didenko’s countrymen endured?
P.S. I will add, that on July 29 a telegram from the Department of Fisheries in Moscow arrived. The telegram once again ALLOWS the "Monarch" to carry out commercial harvest. In other words, this is already spitting in everyone's face.