Khobitnov found the end of a tiger trail not far from Luchegorsk. The
subsequent encounter gave him the distinction of being one of the few
people on earth who has been literally nose-to-nose with a wild tiger and
managed to walk away. The road to Khobitnov’s hometown in Terney, a
picturesque fishing village on the outer edge of the Sikhote-Alin
Zapovednik, is narrow and serpentine, and there are moments among
those green ridges covered in birch, oak, and pine when you could swear
you were in New England, somewhere between the Berkshires and the
White Mountains. But this illusion dissolves as soon as you cross the
bridge over Tigrine Creek or pass through villages with names like
Transformation and Little Stone by the Sea. Traveling these quiet back
roads—the only roads—it is hard to tell what era one is in. Nestled in the
valleys are squat villages that, with the exception of cars and the
occasional satellite dish, have changed little since Arseniev passed
through. The houses are still trimmed in gingerbread and painted in
wavering shades of slate blue, mustard yellow, and verdigris. In summer,
the picketed yards are still planted to the doorsills with potatoes and, in
winter, buried to the windowsills in snow. Their inhabitants may smoke
cigarettes rolled with newspaper, and most of the young and disenchanted
have left.
Khobitnov is fortunate in that he has, despite multiple puncture wounds
and broken bones, managed to live a relatively normal life, though his
path to the present has been anything but normal. A former Muscovite
who turned sixty in 2008, Khobitnov has been on the Far East coast for
more than half his life, working in fishing and hunting management, and
also with Dale Miquelle and John Goodrich on the Siberian Tiger Project.
During this time, he has had dozens of tiger encounters, his first
occurring shortly after he arrived in the spring of 1974. “About three days
after I got here,” he recalled, “a lot of snow fell and a neighbor invited
me to go down to the ocean. We went to the ocean and saw a tiger!”
Seeing this storied creature on the edge of his known world evoked “such
joy,” recalled Khobitnov. “The tiger is the symbol of Primorye.”
The courtyard in front of Khobitnov’s low-slung house near the beach
is the first indication that one is in the presence of a remarkable person. It
ron
(Ron)
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