 Whaling in the Soviet Union and Russia

Russian whaling has been conducted by native peoples in the Chukotka region of Russia since at least 4,000 years ago by native Yupik and Chukchi people, but commercial whaling did not begin until the mid-19th century, when companies based in Finland (then part of Imperial Russia) sent out vessels to the Pacific.It was not until 1932 that modern pelagic whaling began to take off with the purchase of an American cargo ship which was renamed the "Aleut," which was the only Soviet factory ship until World War II.