“It was way too close to Vladivostok. Access was impossible to control. The [Tunguska Biosphere] Preserve lasted exactly as long as it took the governor to lease it out for timbering.”
“The Koreans.”
She looked at him and nodded. “The governor said, don’t worry, they’re cutting trees, not tigers. But if you take the trees, you kill the tigers. [That’s the first rule of ecology: everything is connected to everything. The second rule is, never trust a Russian politician.”
Another good rule. “So the Koreans showed up with saws. Then what happened?”
First they cut logging roads. That drove off the red deer. Then they cleared the brush. That destroyed the boar habitat. No bear, no dear, no tiger. It’s that simple. Tigers were starving. It was a scramble to get the animals up here before the poachers and the loggers finished them off. There’s plenty of prey up here for them, the timber density is too low to justify logging. Not too far north the trees run out completely. Best of all, you can’t get here so easily.”
Unless you were AmerRus. “How was Ryzkhov going to help?”
She faced [Markovo mayor] Nowek. “You know how things work. If you don’t have blat, you might as well go home. Andrei knew what was going on around Tunguska. He could make things available to us. Information. People. Whatever. He was very useful. Anything he couldn’t manage, his brother could. His father stil has connections and he doesn’t even live in Russia.
Blat was pull, and without blat or money you could forget getting anything done. “Maybe someone knew of Rhyzhkov’s arrangement with you. Is that possible?”
“You tell me.”
“I think that it’s very possible. Perhaps they thought they could work through him to make you stop, or your rangers.” He thought again of the treasure trove in the other room. A feast of bones. Worth killing for? A twenty-dollar bill was worth killing for. “Perhaps they killed him when they learned he was helping you.”
..
..They had families. Children and wives. In fact, I could make a good case that the Markovo militia should be on the endangered list. If I applied for a grant, if I begged, do you think we could get talented individuals like you to help fly them somewhere safe. Where could they go, Dr Vereskaya? Irkutsk? Idaho? Someone like you would have a suggestion.”
“Get out of here.”
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a Blundell Service in Education document
J 🦘🇦🇺-🇷🇺 🌏 16102026
