5

And  menacingly  the     mighty  vastness    envelops    me,     reflected   with

terrible    force   in  my  depths.

NIKOLAI GOGOL,

Dead    Souls^1

VLADIMIR MARKOV HAD A HISTORY WITH TIGERS, AND IT

TOOK THE form not of a linear continuum but of a steadily tightening
spiral. The first loose turns appeared to be accidents of history, but many
Russians would call them twists of fate. Were one to try to identify the
single most important influence on Markov’s destiny—besides Markov
himself—it would probably be a toss-up between Mao Zedong and
perestroika. Had there been no Cultural Revolution, and no pitched battle
for control of China’s Communist Party, it is unlikely that Markov ever
would have ventured past the Urals. Had perestroika not occurred,
Markov and many others would not have found themselves desperate
enough to do virtually anything—including hunt tigers—for money.
Vladimir Markov was born on February 14, 1951, at the extreme
opposite end of Russia, on the shattered margin of a shell-shocked empire
in which his parents were not so much citizens as survivors. They lived in
Kaliningrad, the diminutive province wedged between Poland and
Lithuania on the Baltic Sea that was formerly a German territory. Most of
the capital city, Königsberg, and its strategic port were still in ruins after
being heavily bombed by the British during the summer of 1944 and then
shelled relentlessly by the Soviets during the winter and spring of 1945.
After the war, Königsberg was renamed Kaliningrad. It became the base
for the Soviet Baltic Fleet and, like Vladivostok, its Pacific counterpart,
the city was declared off limits to outsiders.