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) On 30 November, the submarine returned to the Submarine Base at Pearl Harbor. Following almost two months in Hawaii, "Sterlet" embarked on her third war patrol on 25 January 1945. Her assigned area was off Honshū, Japan, particularly the area off Tokyo Bay, where she stood lifeguard duty for Fifth Fleet pilots attacking Tokyo. She made reconnaissance sweeps of the Japanese Fleet and patrolled with a "wolfpack" that also included , , , and . During this cruise, she made two torpedo attacks, one each on 1 March and 5 March, and claimed two sinkings, a freighter and a tanker.