Fish festival on Solovki islands

The Solovki Herring Festival opens on the Solovki Islands (the White Sea) on Friday.

The participants are to make fish-tackles with their own hands and then try to catch the famous Solovki herring, said the administration of the Arkhangelsk region.

Moreover, all comers will be able to taste sea food, in particular, Solovki herring delicacies prepared by professional cooks.

The open sea championship of herring fishing will be the highlight of the festival. Everyone, professionals and amateurs, pensioners and schoolchildren, locals and guests, will compete in the following categories: "the best catch", "the largest fish" and "the smallest fish". There are special categories for youngest fishermen and veterans.

The awarding ceremony will be held at the Solovki fair opening on Saturday, July 24.

The Solovki historical-architectural museum and nature reserve, the Solovki fishing club and the Solovchane public organization are to make this festival a tradition, the administration reported.

The Solovki monastery (a fortress, a frater, the Assumption, Transfiguration and Annunciation Churches, and stone buildings) was founded on the largest island of the archipelago in the mid-15th century. Two centuries later the monastery became a center of the church split. In Imperial Russia and after the revolution (1920-1930s) it was a place of exile.