Freshwater fisheries were an important component of the natural and cultural heritage of the former USSR and its republics. Six articles in this issue, “A Rare Glimpse of the Freshwater Fishes of Central Asia,” provide unique insights into the freshwater fish fauna and fisheries of Dagestan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lake Baikal, Sea of Azov, and the Ukraine (Figure 1).
To the English-speaking world, the fisheries of Lake Baikal are perhaps the best known, those of the Ukraine and the Sea of Azov lesser known, and those of Dagestan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan virtually unknown. These articles, written by authorities on the freshwater fisheries of these regions, provide an invaluable wealth of information never before published in English, not even in the English version of Voprosy Ikhtiologii, the Russian Journal of Ichthyology. The articles summarize the freshwater fish fauna and history of fisheries in these regions and challenges faced including...
