The Rising of Anzali’s Fishermen

Azita Laqai

 

In their protest against Lianazof’s concession, the fishermen of Anzali took a sit in at the telegraph house of the town. According to the concession, all halal fish were for the domestic consumers. A kind of fish by fishermen was called Suf by Guilani, and Surak by the Russians. This was a scald fish, but it had two large teeth, so the Guilanis thought that eating of that fish was not permitted according to religious principles. So they had to sell the fish at a very low price that was seven tomans for every thousand fish to Lianazof Company. The fishermen of Anzali cabled a telegram to Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Tabatabi and complained that they are under pressure from authorities of Anzali to give suf fish to the Russians, and that they were waiting for the reply of Majlis. The Majlis members asked the government to see to the compliant. After a period, government replied:” the contract of Lianazof is five tomans for every thousand fish, and in past year just for the welfare of the fishermen two tomans had been added to the price and that at the time being objection to the contract is impossible.” Some Majlis members objected to the government’s reply. Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Tabatabi announced that they had no right to put the fishermen under pressure to sell the fish. The government claimed that if the contract were to be cancelled it had to pay five thousand tomans indemnity. Seyyed Mohammad answered that he knew some people who were ready to take the place of the Russians and pay the indemnity.

 

However the fishermen did not succeed to influence the concession which remained for many years at the hands of Lianazof family, and the Tsarist Russian government gave its full support to it. Accordingly, the monopoly of the world’s caviar was in the hands of this family.  Following the fall of the Tsar, the Soviet government claimed the ownership of the Caspian fisheries and Iran was being pestered by the Soviets for many years.