Vladivostok and four hours down from Khabarovsk, Luchegorsk is a
place where no one stops unless they have to, but this is true of most
communities in the Far East. There are far bigger towns in Primorye
where the first inquiry made of a stranger can easily be “So, what brings
you to this asshole of the world?”^3 Yuri Trush, however, is a bright spot
on the landscape; he is well known around town and has a vigorous
handshake, hug, or slap on the back for many of the people he encounters.
But he had a different greeting for Vladimir Markov.
Trush had visited Markov’s cabin once before he was killed. A year
and a half earlier, in the summer of 1996, Trush and Alexander
Gorborukov had been on a routine patrol when they found a dead badger
cooling in a metal pot in a creek that flowed nearby. Markov was at home
and Trush confronted him. Visibly nervous, he gave a lame story about
how the badger had gotten into the pot. Killed by dogs, he’d said. Trush
looked closely at Markov, then drew his knife and sliced open one of the
badger’s wounds; after probing for a moment with his fingers, he
withdrew a shotgun pellet. Markov had no choice but to own up. Because
he had neither a hunting permit nor a gun license, Trush was in a position
to put him out of business then and there. Instead, he gave Markov a
choice: give up his weapon, or get charged on multiple counts. Markov
balked at this until Gorborukov gestured toward his hunting knife, which,
at the time, required an additional license. “We can write you up for the
knife, too,” Trush said. “Or you can give us your gun and we’ll leave it at
that.”
Markov told Trush he’d be back in a few minutes and disappeared into
the forest. It is because of situations like this that poachers rarely leave
evidence of their activities around their cabins. Illegal fish spears, which
look exactly like the tridents used by Nanai and Udeghe fishermen a
century ago, are broken down, the shafts stored in one spot and the iron
tips somewhere else. Nets and traps may be buried or stashed in a hollow
tree. Guns are trickier because they are so sensitive to climate. They are
rarely kept indoors because sudden temperature changes cause the steel
hardware to condense and rust. Typically, they are stored in a paper or