The Tiger (42 page)

In addition to its ongoing work studying the tigers of the Sikhote-Alin, the Wildlife Conservation Society, www.wcs.org, is focused on refining and implementing the all-important “coexistence recipe” in an effort to meet the needs of the Amur tiger and the humans who share its habitat.

Conservation of tigers and their habitat is not a priority in Moscow, so foreign funding is crucial to the efforts of these worthy organizations. Even modest donations are greatly appreciated.

Patricia Polansky, Russian bibliographer at the University of Hawaii’s Hamilton Library; Nina Semenovna Ivantsova, head of the Regional Bibliography Section at the Gorky Library in Vladivostok; Cheryl Hojnowski at the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Vladivostok office; and Michael Zwirn at Wildlife Alliance in Washington, D.C., were helpful allies in ferreting out obscure source material. In Vancouver, Peter and Rosa Stenberg provided a great translator and generous assistance with research materials. Bree Bacon, Mike Bakst, Karin Elliot, and Roma Sidortsov were generous with their insights into all things Russian. Walt Cressler and Shelly Rosenblum waded through the manuscript, offering many helpful comments and suggestions.

A number of experts in various disciplines shared their advice, research, and encouragement at crucial points along the way, among them Clark Barrett, Rock Brynner, C. J. Chivers, Donald Clark, Amir Khisamutdinov, Geoff Mann, Frank Mendel, Lubov Passar, Chris Schneider, Galina Titorova, Kira Van Deusen, Ed Walsh, and Ron Ydenburg. The late Valery Georgevich Yankovsky offered a vivid glimpse of a time and place now all but lost to history.

In addition to being classics in their respective fields, George Schaller’s The Deer and the Tiger, John Stephan’s The Russian Far East, and Matt Cartmill’s A View to a Death in the Morning are solid base camps from which many students have launched their own expeditions into these fascinating realms. That the authors are generous and personable is a bonus to those following in their tracks. Some other key sources were Charles K. Brain’s The Hunters or the Hunted?, Donna Hart and Robert W. Sussman’s Man the Hunted, David Prynn’s Amur Tiger, and Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’s The Tribe of Tiger. For those wanting a rich and readable one-stop source on everything tiger, I would heartily recommend The World of the Tiger by Richard Perry (sadly, out of print).

Finally, I want to thank Sonny Mehta, Louise Dennys, and Marty Asher for their potent enthusiasm, and Stuart Krichevsky for his expert guidance through the urban forest. I am especially grateful to my editor, Andrew Miller, whose sharp eye, light touch, and good company kept this beast from getting out of hand. My deepest gratitude goes always to Nora, and to our children, whose love makes all things possible.

J.V.

Oaxaca, Mexico

December 17, 2009

This is a book about Russians and their tigers, and much of the information in it comes from Russian sources, including many interviews. I cannot speak Russian, so with a few exceptions all of these interviews were conducted by Josh Stenberg and recorded by me during March 2007 and May 2008. They were transcribed by Igor Levit and Asta Mott, two court-certified translators whose skill and insight gave me a much better appreciation for the material. Beyond a handful of common words, Russian bears virtually no resemblance to English, so literal translations often read like chimeras of grammar and syntax. Therefore, of necessity, all the translated quotes in this book have been retooled to flow in English, I have done this while making every effort to preserve the sense, mood, and character of the speaker and, where possible, their slang and idiomatic usage. That said, Russian is a rich, colorful, and nuanced language, and there is no substitute for the real thing.

Several interviews, specifically those with Sasha Dvornik, the late Ivan Dunkai, and the late Vladimir Kruglov, were graciously shared by Sasha Snow and Dale Miquelle. They have enriched this book tremendously. I also wish to thank Misha Jones for his translations of key Russian texts. Monica Hong and Si Nae Park supplied valuable assistance with Korean translations and sources.