 For the first two seasons, "Slava" had Norwegian crew members on board to assist with the capture and processing of whales (the Soviets were initially very inexperienced with Antarctic whaling and needed help getting used to the basics) but starting in the 1948–49 season, having mastered all the fundamentals of whaling, crew members on the "Slava" fleet were all Soviet citizens.The fleet primarily worked the Southeast Atlantic Ocean and the southwest Indian Ocean in its early years, but over time it slowly shifted east as whale populations in the Atlantic-Indian area were depleted.During this time, catches rose significantly from 384 in the 1946–47 season to almost 3000 in the 1951–52 season, and during this time falsification of catches began in earnest