Hair of the Dog

Abstract

In the 1970s through the 1980s, a group of American fishermen and businessmen teamed up with the Soviets to form one of the only joint Soviet-American companies in the world Marine Resources Company. In this Joint Venture, Americans were to catch fish within the newly defined 200-mile limit, then pass them off at sea for the Soviets to process. To serve as translators, Marine Resources hired a dozen or so American speakers of Russian: university students, mostly, with a sprinkling of adult children of Russian immigrants thrown in. They were to live on board the Soviet trawlers and keep tabs on the amount of fish brought on board so that the fishermen would be properly reimbursed.