Astrakhan Fish Market Traditions

Astrakhan sits where the Volga breaks into its delta before the Caspian, and its markets run on what the river and the surrounding land produce. Dried and salted fish is the constant: vobla, bream, pike perch and others, wind dried on racks, sold whole and stiff, eaten torn apart by hand and traditionally with beer. Salted and hot-smoked fish fill the same stalls. In late summer the melons and watermelons arrive from the surrounding fields and are sold in piles by the roadside. The caviar trade is the region's most famous and most changed: sturgeon in the Caspian collapsed under poaching and dam building, wild catch has been prohibited for years, and legal caviar now comes from aquaculture with documentation. Anything sold cheaply from a car or a market stall as wild Caspian caviar is illegal, is often adulterated, and buying it carries real legal risk as well as feeding the poaching that emptied the sea.

What you actually see

• The dried fish racks - vobla and bream wind dried and sold stiff by the piece.
• The melon piles - watermelons and melons from the delta fields in late summer.
• The farmed caviar - the legal product, documented and sold through registered outlets.
• The delta trade - a market economy built on the river and the fields around it.

When to go

July to October for the melons and the fish season. Half a day.

Honest expectations

Wild sturgeon caviar is prohibited and what is offered on the street is illegal, often fake and risky to buy or carry across borders. Dried fish is an acquired taste and smells strongly in luggage. Summer heat in the markets is severe. Hygiene at roadside stalls is variable.

Nearby

Astrakhan kremlin is in the city; the delta and the lotus fields are south.