think that freedom is anarchy, you will not survive.
“It becomes like a drug,” he said, “you have to have it. So, it’s a
strange feeling when you come back [to civilization] because, in the
taiga, the most important things are your bullets. But as soon as you get
to the main road and see the bus coming, you understand that those
bullets don’t mean anything in this other life. All of a sudden, you need
money—strange paper, which you couldn’t even use to start a fire, and
your bullets aren’t going to help you. This transition can be very
difficult.”
On a shelf in Solkin’s office are several cat skulls, including one
belonging to a tiger. It is only when you study it closely that you see the
bullet holes, and it is clear from their placement that the tiger was shot
head-on at close range. “Poachers can be brave, too,” said Solkin.
Outside of Primorye’s nature preserves, the Bikin valley is one of the
wildest places left in the territory and Markov had come to know it well.
In previous years, he had hunted and kept bees further upriver in Ulma, a
tiny settlement accessible only by boat or snowmobile. Between his local
explorations and seasonal migrations, Markov had gained a
comprehensive knowledge of the region and its loosely scattered
inhabitants. His charm worked to his advantage here, too: he befriended a
reclusive hunter named Ivan Dunkai (Vasily Dunkai’s father) who gave
him permission to hunt in his territory. This is when Markov’s gyre
began to tighten.
In the taiga, to this day, there are small but well-developed industries
and markets for many kinds of forest products ranging from honey and
nuts to mushrooms and medicinal roots. In Primorye, the collection of
ginseng, laminaria (a species of edible kelp), and trepang (sea cucumber)
were, along with fur trapping and gold mining, among the region’s
founding industries and still remain profitable. Until the 1970s, opium
poppies were cultivated openly in some villages and they are still grown,