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The centre’s employees told the President about sturgeon breeding and demonstrated new caviar-extracting technologies. They also showed how chips were implanted into the fish to monitor its migration.

Together with members of the International Forum of School Students from Caspian Nations and Volga Regions, Mr Putin released beluga fingerlings into the Volga and Caspian waters.

Astrakhan sturgeon-breeders asked Mr Putin to support their experiment — they are growing bigger species for the Volga and Caspian waters. An experiment to increase the number of sturgeon fingerlings requires additional funding.

At present, there are six species of sturgeon in the Volga and Caspian regions, but only beluga, Russian osetr and sevryuga are of commercial importance; the rest are registered in the Red Book as near-extinct.

Bios is the only specialised federal sturgeon research and production centre. It has about 4,000 sturgeon species, one of Russia’s biggest fish stocks.