This dataset comprises catch compositions and trawl locations from cruises of Russian fishery research vessels carried out in New Zealand waters between 1964 and 1987, containing 11547 demersal trawls from around New Zealand, Kermadec Islands, Antarctic coast and Tasman Sea. The data were obtained by exchange between the New Zealand Ministry of Fisheries (now Ministry for Primary Industries) and Soviet scientists in the mid 1990s. Note: A peer-review carried out by New Zealand scientists have noted some errors in species identification for some of these records. This Soviet Fishery Data (New Zealand Waters) 1964-1987 dataset is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 New Zealand Licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/nz/. If you publish, distribute, or otherwise disseminate this work to the public without adapting it, the following attribution to MPI should be used: “Source: Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) and licensed by MPI for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 New Zealand licence." If you adapt this work in any way or include it in a collection, and publish, distribute, or otherwise disseminate that adaptation or collection to the public, the following attribution to MPI should be used: "This work is based on/includes MPI’s data which are licensed by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 New Zealand licence."