* The real business: black caviar

But the real stake in the area is not small fry fishing, as fishermen would say, but rather sturgeon fishing, whose eggs sell for thousands of Euros per kilogram.

At Cotul Pisicii, the Danube is only 20 m deep, which facilitates the catching of large fish, which come there to lay their eggs. Experts in the area, which chose to remain anonymous, said: "The price for a kilogram of black caviar starts, called < caviar royal-black >, starts at 1,000 Euros in Dobrogea and can reach 5,000 Euros in Paris and even 15,000 Euros in New York. Cotul Pisicii has become one of the best places for fishing sturgeons, since this is their reproduction area, as, before the construction of the dam at Porţile de Fier (Iron Gate), sturgeons would go up the Danube all the way to Budapest".

* The fishermen of Cotul Pisicii would have wanted the area flooded to see their profits increase

* The breaking of the dam that protects Galaţi would have led to the appearance of a new major lake

* The political squabbling for the monopoly of exploiting sturgeons has caused Romania to lose its leading position when it comes to the quality of sturgeon eggs

There are areas in the country whose residents would have liked to be flooded, who precisely because of the disaster that was avoided missed out on profits of tens of millions of Euros.

One such example is Cotul Pisicii, an area which has become notorious after the recent floods caused by the Danube, when the breaking of the dam was suggested to protect one of the neighborhoods of Galaţi.

Cotul Pisicii was supposed to be the rescue of Romania"s most important metallurgic city - which is now being threatened on all sides by the waters of the Danube and of the rivers Prut and Siret.

However, not many are aware of the fact that many of villagers in the Cotul