In their stories I often mention the river of my childhood Sandiego in the Kostroma region. We all come from childhood, so now I’ll start with her. This quick and clean forest river flows near the village of Semenkovo, in front of which through the catwalk was a pioneer camp, where I spent a month every summer before fifth grade.
The river was full of bleak and minnows, which are easily caught on a rod to the delight of us kids. But the more serious fish to catch it was hard, this was done by the guys from the senior squad. Once a week, among them even organized competitions of fishermen, the winners received a cake with jam, and freshly caught fish cooked ear for fishermen.
On Sendege near the camp, stood a small wooden dam, which the whole week to accumulate the water, descending down the bare minimum. Why do this, don’t know… But every Saturday night the dam completely dumped accumulated. Sendega for a few hours was made turbulent, muddy and out of the familiar shores. Here in these hours and become fishers high school students to their competition, because this thread has begun to caught perch and big plotwise, which later boiled fish soup. Behind the fishermen was a steep grassy Bank, on it sat the spectators in the amphitheatre. I was a regular viewer.
And then one day, several fishermen shouting summoned judges-leaders, and behind them ran and the curious, including myself… In the arms and hooks three guys meandered bright snake finger thick and a length of from 7 to 10 see the Boys were perplexed, they say, caught the creepers, and they will be reckoned to them, or what?.. The judges said that the creepers are in credit. But when the fishermen wanted to throw them in the pot with the rest of the fish, the counselors wouldn’t allow it, saying that the creepers inedible(!). It stuck in my memory for years to come.
Much later I learned that the residents of Astrakhan and Volgograd regions before the war and ten years after it, when they network across sturgeon, threw their eggs as inedible, because like that of a frog. Still on the same Volga and don, the residents of distant villages not eat delicacy lampreys if caught. However, I used to sell them to dealers when they are nearby.
One of the kings of fish processing, along with sturgeon and salmon all over the world revered river eel. This tireless tramp and Explorer spawns in the Sargasso sea of the Atlantic ocean, then put in all the freshwater reservoirs of the ocean where you can swim or even crawl on the wet grass on the land, then to return to the Sargasso sea to spawn and die. Small eels from the waters of the Baltic penetrated into the rivers and lakes near Tver, pushed there into the Volga, but then did not go back, as an adult. But in 1935, earned the Volga-Baltic canal, formed for the Baltic aquatic fauna free and convenient passage. And the Volga was then without any dams.
And that’s before the war and immediately after it in the network of the Caspian fishermen began to fall thick “snakes” meter values, which famously crawled on the ground, was not given in hand and, no matter how early, continued to move, not yet severed in half. Stir the acne has caused a fair amount, but anybody even in a head did not come that they can and should eat. It was not until the advent of the Volga dams, Baltic eels in the lower reaches of the river did not.
But then earned the Volga-don canal and in the lower Volga came acne the Azov-black sea populations, they already reached the Caspian sea, and now rarely, but regularly visit the beach. They stopped being a curiosity and become coveted prey, for their own table and for sale. But residents of Vologda, Archangelsky, Komi, Khanty and Mansi still disdain burbot, which is complete in their polar lakes and rivers. So far the eel is no exception.
Fell in love with fishing, I avidly read Sabaneev and other sources, which describes the methods of fishing, habits and culinary properties of fish. This reading dispelled all my previous prejudices and sparked a gastronomic curiosity that prompted the search for catching certain fish, to make and try some of them dishes…
In particular, I hunted for burbot to cook their livers and carcasses bloat hot, very long time looking for ruffs of Nosara from the don to cook soup, and minnows to fry. All I managed to do that.
And with only loach somehow did not work. Loach I am fired up to try after I have read Sabaneev that the meat is boneless, soft and sweet, but a little bit gives Tina. Therefore, the Germans of loaches boiled in beer or vinegar, and the French do fried or boiled loaches gourmet appetizer, if those before cooking fell asleep in red wine(?!) or milk… Importantly, why red!? Because according to the canons of the same of French cuisine, fish and seafood eat only white wine!
Whatever it was, began to search for vunow we have, on Volgogradke since learned that somewhere, someone they once met… Along the way, continued to collect information about them. It turned out that the morning glories are found in swamp and lake water bodies in forests of the Russian middle band, in the Belarusian Polesie and the swamps of the Dnieper. Where they are abundant and large, grow up to 30 cm If the eel lives in the river with flowing water, it is smaller, not more than 10 cm, lighter in color and is called a bullhead. In Sendege was Shipovka. Loach does not like the hot South and cold North, so it is almost not visible in the lower reaches of the Volga, and extremely rare in France, why, and prized it very highly.
In General, deciding to get loaches, I really had unsuccessfully tried to find them in our Volgograd region: asked of those who they accidentally came across, traveled to different places that I pointed out… But it did not happen! And then, for the umpteenth time, I turned for assistance to an ichthyologist of the Volgograd research Institute of lake and river economy Vasily Boldyrev. With his help I have always had a positive result. It happened at this time. A month after my request, he invited me to his Institute and showed a pair of magnificent living loaches produced in some protected-covered lakes of the Volga-Akhtuba floodplain. Fish was over 20 cm each, thanks to their resilience and adaptability well-lived in the aquarium of the Institute, and even began to grow rapidly, as regularly, abundantly and effortlessly, is getting a scientifically selected food.
Together with them showed me in jars with formalin carcass local sipovac. In the rivers region they found as many as three kinds: ordinary, Baltic and Siberian. I explained that the Baltic and Siberian Shipovka not because brought to us from the Baltic and Siberia… No, they lived here always, just these species first discovered and described in the Baltics and Siberia.
The common and the Siberian Shipovka common in the Volga and don basin, and the Baltic only in Pridon, because she loves river with a rapid current, which is in the floodplain of the Volga. He also told me that the creepers and sunovia we have everywhere, but rare and scattered, never to meet heaps as in lakes and bogs of the middle band, because we have no suitable reservoirs, but the natural enemies for loaches in our area very much.
I’ve done pictures that I showed, and although not got the main things sought, it is possible to prepare a sample of these “securpol”, pre-treating them with vinegar or beer or wine… But nothing remained, therefore, an unrealized piece of the dream, something to strive for!
