This is hardly the first dispute over fishing quotas in Primorye. The first occurred a year ago, when Darkin took over as governor. Among his first acts was to allocate the entire regional pollock quota to a trio of friendly firms. When the proposed quota was sent to the State Fisheries Committee for approval, Nazdratenko rejected it and gave the pollock quota to companies that, shall we say, had flourished during his time as governor.

In a way it’s not hard to understand Nazdratenko. Who is Darkin, after all? Just a run-of-the-mill businessman. After the death of a local crime boss called Baul, Darkin was caught up in the middle between two criminal bosses nicknamed Karp and Vinni-Pukh. They even unloaded a machine gun right under his nose. Nazdratenko is in a different league. No one leaned on him after Baul’s death. Quite the opposite: Local legend in Vladivostok has it that Baul drowned shortly after his relationship with Nazdratenko took a turn for the worse. Something about missing campaign funds.

Governor Darkin, however, went running to Kasyanov with his problem. Nazdratenko had no authority to reject the proposed quota allocations, after all. State Fisheries Committee approval was supposed to be a mere technicality. Kasyanov became indignant, all the more so as he wanted to put his own man in charge of the committee. Nazdratenko promised to make everything right, and he did — about a month after the year’s pollock quota had been filled.

What is at stake in the Russian fishing business? Insiders say that for every dollar you invest you clear $12 in profit. This is poaching, of course, conducted under the protection of gangsters, border guards and bureaucrats, who divide up quotas for bribes. According to rumors that have been making the rounds, the murder of the late Magadan Governor Valentin Tsvetkov was more than a little fishy.

Fish like peace and quiet, however, and Nazdratenko was notorious for stirring things up. No sooner had rumors about his ouster begun to circulate than he launched an international battle to review the Baker-Shevardnadze line, the Russian-U.S. border in the Bering and Chukotka seas, claiming that Russia loses a minimum of 200,000 tons of pollock each year to the Americans. When Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref wanted to auction off fishing quotas to reduce the potential for bribery, fishermen in Primorye immediately took to the streets. In the White House, they suspected that Nazdratenko had been rather more than just an innocent bystander.

This might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. Bureaucrats can do almost anything in Russia: take bribes, exceed their authority, feud openly with other bureaucrats and even conduct their own foreign policy. But rocking the social boat by stoking popular passions in an attempt to defend one’s turf is apparently taboo.

Nazdratenko was made head of the State Fisheries Committee in exchange for voluntarily vacating the governor’s office in Vladivostok. President Vladimir Putin wanted to set a precedent: When a governor resigns his post peacefully, he receives a plum consolation prize. Nazdratenko was not appointed to the fisheries job for life, however, and he did nothing to merit an extension.

Nazdratenko won’t disappear. He could run for the governor’s post in Kamchatka, where he has already made inroads. During Nazdratenko’s tenure at the State Fisheries Committee, many companies in Kamchatka lost their licenses — which were subsequently bought up for pennies on the dollar by companies connected to Primorye Senator Oleg Kozhemyako. And it just so happens that the senator is considered a close ally of Nazdratenko.

Copyright 2003 The Moscow Times

Yulia Latynina is author and host of “Yest Mneniye” on TVS (a Russian Television channel) and a frequent contributor to The Moscow Times.