How a salmon crisis has stoked Russia’s protests

Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times
Plentiful salmon used to be one of the perks for residents in the Far East of Russia. But the wild fishery they once took for granted is gone because Moscow has allowed enterprises to string enormous nets across the river’s mouth, they say, adding there is virtually no legal way to catch enough to eat of what little fish remains.

Now, anger over the depleted fish stock is driving the anti-Kremlin protests that have been shaking the city of Khabarovsk, on the Amur River, above, since July. The story of the vanishing salmon sheds light on why Vladimir Putin’s support has fallen — many Russians feel that the country’s elite neither knows or cares about concrete instances of poverty and injustice.