9

Men carry   their   superiority inside; animals outside.

Russian Proverb

FOLLOWING THE DISCOVERY OF MARKOV’S REMAINS,

INSPECTION TIGER conducted a series of interviews with the last
people to see him alive. There were about a half dozen all told and,
despite the fact that they lived a considerable distance from one another
—some with no road access whatsoever—each of them claimed to have
seen Markov within hours of his death. Not surprisingly, all of them were
men: ethnic Russian loggers and native hunters, and one of them—the
key witness, as it were—was Ivan Dunkai.
Dunkai was a Nanai elder from the native village of Krasny Yar (“Red
Bank”), which lies fifteen miles downstream from Sobolonye. Situated on
the left bank of the Bikin, it had no road access until a bridge was built in
the 1990s. About six hundred Udeghe and Nanai residents live in the

village, along with a handful of ethnic Russian* spouses, officials, and
other transplants. Arseniev and Dersu are reported to have passed through
the area in 1908 and, were they to return there today, they wouldn’t be
surprised by what they found. Dugout canoes and slender, piroguelike
omorochkas line the riverbank, livestock roam the tidy dirt streets, and
virtually every structure, fence, and walkway is made of wood. Firewood
is delivered in the form of a tree trunk, from which logs are sawed off and
split as needed. Save for the predominance of Asiatic faces, Krasny Yar
could be mistaken for the shtetl in Fiddler on the Roof. The only obvious
differences between then and now are the electric lights, a handful of cars
and snowmobiles, and several fanciful houses designed by a Ukrainian
artist, one of which looks like a snarling tiger.