The site
The Production site
This recirculation sturgeon farm is situated in a small (about 22.000 inhabitants) industrial town called Varkaus, Finland, in the premises of a paper mill.
There are many advantages of being joint with a very large factory, but the most important is to be able to use the waste heat of the factory to heat the farming water. The water to the factory comes from a nearby pristine lake (ca. 2 km away) through a large tunnel, and the farm has its own 400 m long canal taking water of the main tunnel. In the start of the tunnel there is a grill to avoid entry of fish and unwanted particles to the system. The grill is brushed clean automatically. Incoming water temperature varies between 0 and 20 °C during the year.
There are 2 water inlet tubes coming to the tanks, one of which is the water with natural temperature and the other with the heated water. Tank water temperature is manually adjusted to the target temperature. The optimal temperature for growth of Siberian sturgeon is between 18 and 22 °C.
The farm uses about 100 l of water per second and the majority
of this goes to the fasting tanks to get rid of the off-flavors in
the meat and the caviar before slaughtering. The outgoing water from
the fasting tanks is not cleaned in any manner.
The picture shows part of the area where the Carelian caviar production site is located.
Introduction Varkaus
Varkaus (before year 1929 Warkaus) is a Middle-Savonian industrial town and municipality of Finland.
Varkaus is a small, modern city of 23,000 inhabitants in
the lake district of Finland. In the centre, a multitude
of services is available within walking distance.
Unspoiled nature and security make Varkaus a great place
to live.
It is located in the province of Eastern Finland and is
part of the Northern Savonia region. The municipality
has a population of 22,587 (31 January 2015) and covers
an area of 524.49 square kilometres (202.51 sq mi) of
which 138.45 km2 (53.46 sq mi) is water. The population
density is 58.51 inhabitants per square kilometre (151.5
/sq mi).
The municipality is unilingually Finnish. Oddly enough,
'Varkaus' translates to 'theft', even though it is not
the reason for giving that name to the city. In old
Finnish, the same word also meant strait, and this city
is located in the lake district. The town is located on
straits between two parts of Lake Saimaa. An extension
of the Saimaa Canal passes through the town.
The town became an industrial center in the end of the 19th century with the A. Ahlström paper mills. During the Finnish Civil War in 1918 the town was taken over by the "Reds", but because of its isolated location in rural Finland, it was soon taken by the "Whites". The whites proceeded to mercilessly execute every tenth Red soldier.
The map shows the location of Middle-Savonian in Finland. The geo-coordinates of Varkaus: 62°19′N 027°53.5′E. Situated 320km north from Helsinki Varkaus is easy to reach. Both national roads 5 and 23 lead you into the city and the flight from Helsinki to Varkaus takes merely an hour. You may also use the Saimaa deep-water channel to travel to Varkaus by boat all the way from the Baltic Sea (Descriptions in part taken from Wikipedia and the site about Varkaus).