man Sobolonye Radio.
It was due, in part, to his humor and good nature that Markov attracted
the attention of the boss of the logging company, a man known to his
hundreds of employees as Boris Ivanovich.* Given his combination of
talents, Markov would have been good company on long trips through
rough country, and this was why Boris Ivanovich hired him as his
personal driver, making Markov one of very few people ever to chauffeur
a limousine through tiger country. Under the circumstances, Boris had
made an odd choice of vehicles: a Volga sedan. Volgas are considered
luxury cars and, during Soviet times, they were usually associated with
diplomats and high-ranking Party officials. Needless to say, they are a
much more plausible sight on the broad boulevards of Moscow and St.
Petersburg than in the backwoods of Primorye. It conjures an image that
is both poignant and faintly bizarre: Markiz, the short and cheery
jokester, dressed in a white shirt and trousers, conveying his well-
connected communist boss in high style through the mud, dust, and snow
of the Bikin valley. Given the available options, it is hard to imagine a
safer occupation. It would have been hard to believe that Markov would
earn the tragic distinction of being the only chauffeur in Russia—perhaps
anywhere—ever to be eaten by a tiger.
Markov was also registered as a professional hunter with Alufchanski,
just as Lev Khomenko had been. Markov, like most hunters and trappers
in the region, focused on sable, a large member of the weasel family that
is to Russian fur trappers what the beaver was to their North American
counterparts (Sobolonye means, literally, “Sable Place”). Alufchanski
purchased furs and wild meat from local hunters and trappers at centrally
established rates, thereby creating a stable and secure national market
that made it possible to earn an honest living from the forest. Until very
recently, the fur industry was a mainstay of the Far Eastern economy and
a key supplier to the world market. Like early accounts from the United
States and Canada, most folktales, histories, travelogues, and biographies
from Primorye address the fur trade in one way or another. Its central role
offers a graphic illustration of Primorye’s quasi-colonial status as