As if it had wanted it to happen. Here, it is noteworthy that it was prohibited for the members of her mother's family to eat sturgeon. After the funerals, the fish was taken away to the processing station. The narrative shows how widespread was the idea of exchanging one life for another, the replacement of a real or potential human life with that of another human or animal, among Russians. One can observe the survival of an ancient idea according to which a human life is connected with the life of an animal.
Sturgeon is considered an especially holy fish.
Even today, when salting fish, the Nenets women of the Yenisei river do not touch sturgeon, pike or burbot, leaving these for men to process. The occurrence with the big sturgeon can be interpreted so that the death of a human being caused a simultaneous death of an animal or a fish. Possibly, there are some relics of it being regarded as an ancestor. For example, the Nganasans sometimes associate the death of a human being with the perishing of a certain tree. In Polina Romanovna's narratives her post-marriage adaptation to the nomadic life of the Dolghans, the atmosphere of their dwelling, living conditions and interpersonal relations.