The East Mining Company organized an excursion for schoolchildren of the School No. 2 "Synthesis" of Shakhtersk to the fish-breeding plant in the village of Urozhaynoye in the Tomarinsky district. 400,000 “graduates” of this plant were released into the Lesogorka River on June 1, Children's Day.

Under the guidance of the chief fish farmer of the enterprise, Olga Anatolyevna Shemel, who devoted thirty years of her life to fish, two dozen schoolchildren from Shakhtersk learned about all the intricacies of captive salmon breeding. For example, few of the children knew that not a fry, but a larva hatches from an egg, and even more so about how much work it takes to grow it into a small fish.

Olga Shemel: "I'm with them, after all, just like with children! Incubation of eggs is from August to November, then the eyes appear, and we begin to loosen it with our hands, by April - May, the larvae take shape already in dark-colored fish."

How the first months of life of fry go, the children were shown already in the workshops. About 21 million salmon are grown here annually - pink salmon, sim, chum salmon. These fry replenish the population of wild Sakhalin salmon. In the distillation pond, the children were able to get to know the fish already ready for release into the wild: literally catch and assess the condition of the juveniles, which will enter the Chernaya River in the evening.

The schoolchildren were also told about the peculiarities of the habitual pink salmon life in natural conditions. Young people were satisfied, having received not only new information, but also the basics of a humane attitude towards wildlife.