Tiger’s greatest disadvantages was the size of its teams’ jurisdictions.
Trush’s Bikin unit was responsible for the entire northwest corner of
Primorye, which included nearly a hundred miles of the Chinese border
along the Ussuri River. This meant they had a general understanding of
their region, but sometimes lacked deep knowledge of specific areas. On
the middle Bikin, the Tigers’ responsibilities overlapped with those of
Field Group Taiga. The tensions this created were analogous to those
occurring between local police and federal investigators: whereas Field
Group Taiga was a small agency with limited power, Inspection Tiger
operated on a larger scale with more resources and a higher profile. These
imbalances, along with assorted interpersonal dynamics, made for some
hard feelings, but after Pochepnya’s death there was no more room for
turf wars or jealousy; Vladimir Schetinin simply needed the best men he
could get, and Field Group Taiga had them. He called Yevgeny Smirnov.
Smirnov is a former Muscovite who exiled himself to Krasny Yar, and
he is a force to be reckoned with. After doing hard time in the army under
vague circumstances, he took a job as a night policeman in Moscow. This
is a seriously dangerous occupation in which violent confrontations are
commonplace, and Smirnov—lean, muscular, with a pale, rawboned face
enlivened by piercing blue eyes—faced them head-on. However, the
combination of this and his experiences in the army took its toll. “My life
kind of cornered me,” he said in the living room of his airy and
immaculate log home overlooking the Bikin. “The military training came
back to haunt me, and my nerves gave out: there were occasions when
people would come up behind me and, before I knew it, they would be
lying on the ground. I realized that the further away I was from people,
the better it would be for everyone. That’s why I got into hunting
management. I found out about Krasny Yar in the Lenin Library in
Moscow.”
Smirnov married a Udeghe woman and has been living and working on
the Bikin since 1979. He has had many encounters with tigers, but his
approach to these meetings is radically different from that of his
neighbors. When a questionnaire was sent around to local hunters seeking
advice on what people should do if they ran into a tiger, Smirnov ignored
ron
(Ron)
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