Caviar sturgeon from the Sea of Azov began reaching the tables of aristocratic and noble Byzantine Greeks in the 10th century, after the commencement of large-scale trading between the Byzantine Empire and Kievan Rus'. The main types of caviar are Beluga, Sterlet, Kaluga hybrid, American osetra, Ossetra, Siberian sturgeon and Sevruga. The rarest and costliest is from beluga sturgeon that swim in the Caspian Sea, which is bordered by Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan. Wild caviar production was suspended in Russia between 2008 and 2011 to allow wild stocks to replenish. Azerbaijan and Iran also allow the fishing of sturgeon
USS Sterlet (SS-392) Florida, on 1 May to join the Pacific Fleet. The submarine reached Pearl Harbor on 13 June, and she immediately plunged into another round of training exercises to prepare for her first war patrol. On 4 July 1944, she put to sea to prey on Japanese shipping. The patrol lasted 53 days; and "Sterlet" spent 34 of them in her assigned patrol area, the Bonin Islands. By the time she put into Midway Island for refit on 26 August, the submarine was a battle-proven veteran, claiming to have sunk four enemy ships. She even brought in a prisoner — a