Thursday Was Fish Day.... But Where Did It Come From?

Do you remember, or have you heard stories about, how Thursday mornings would bring jokes or earnest remarks — well, fish day again today? The hesitation outside the canteen door on Thursdays was real, especially for those who had no love for fish whatsoever.

Devoted fish lovers may have actually looked forward to the day. Those who preferred meat eyed the calendar with a somewhat more troubled look. But hardly anyone asked why Thursdays had become fish days. Thursday simply was fish day — it had always been that way, and that was how it was supposed to be.

There was, in fact, a very specific reason why Thursday became fish day. You're about to find out…

Prologue: 1932, Collectivisation and the Vanishing Pigs

It all began in 1932, when People's Commissar Anastas Mikoyan grew concerned about the shortage of meat. Collectivisation and aggressive food taxes imposed on the peasantry had driven pig farming into crisis, reduced livestock numbers, and ultimately triggered a mass famine.

A decree from the People's Commissariat introduced a fish day for public catering establishments. This was not, of course, justified as a response to the meat shortage — in true Soviet fashion, it was declared that the aim was to diversify the diet of consumers.

The first fish day experiment lasted a few years and then faded away. But the idea remained.

The Second Attempt: 1976 and the Question of Why Thursday

In the 1960s, the Soviet Union set out to conquer the open seas and became one of the world's leading ocean-fishing nations. The fish caught there reached consumers only in frozen form, and few people had any idea how to prepare it. After yet another meat shortage in 1976, the Central Committee of the Communist Party decided to establish a fixed fish day — and it was to be Thursday.

But why Thursday specifically? An entire team worked on the question: doctors, psychologists, sociologists. Monday was ruled out because weekends often involved family gatherings with good home-cooked food, meaning people would not have been receptive to fish the very next day. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, factory work was at its most intensive and workers were fed meat dishes to keep their energy up. Friday, being the last day before the weekend, was also unlikely to go down well with fish on the menu. Thursday was therefore left as the option least likely to provoke resistance.

There is also a second version: Thursday was chosen as an anti-religious gesture. Orthodox Christians traditionally fasted on Wednesdays and Fridays — meaning they ate fish on those days. By introducing a meat-free Thursday, the fast was effectively extended by one more day, creating what amounted to three consecutive days of fish. The Soviet authorities made use of every opportunity to advance their agenda and tighten their grip on the population.

What This Meant in Real Life

On Thursdays, only fish dishes were served in canteens across the country. There was no meat on the menu that day. Soviet citizens ate fried cod or minced cod patties.

In Estonia, there was an additional layer to this. The meat shortage here was systemic. In 1970, the Estonian SSR contributed 29,000 tonnes of meat to the all-union fund. It received 1,400 tonnes in return. Eighteen years later, over 64,000 tonnes were sent out. Two hundred tonnes came back. Every fifth pig and every third litre of milk left Estonia.

That is why the canteen gravy was thin. That is why Thursday was fish day.

Was It Really Like That?

Yes, it really was exactly like that.

Fish day was not introduced to encourage people to eat more varied or more healthily. It was not the result of successful lobbying by the fishing industry either. It was the Soviet authorities' solution to a problem they refused to officially acknowledge: there simply was not enough meat.

And yet Thursday as fish day is still remembered. Some families still eat fish on Thursdays — as though continuing a tradition whose origins have long since been forgotten.

That is the neatly packaged paradox of the Soviet era: a system imposed out of scarcity became a habit, and from that habit grew a custom.

Soviet-era food stories — about canteens, quotas, shortages and resourcefulness — can be explored further at the exhibition "Where Did the Gravy Come From and Where Did the Meat Go?" at MUHK / the Estonian Agricultural Museum in Ülenurme. The exhibition is open until 31 December 2027.