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Outside Magazine December 2004

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A Message In Blood (Cont.)


	Big kill: an American hunter with a snapshot of his Kamchatkan trophy (Gueorgui Pinkhassov)

"CHARLIE GOT IN MANY PEOPLE'S WAY," the old hunter was telling me. "But most of all Kovalenkov's."

Roman—whose name I've changed—was driving us out of P.K. in his battered truck, a thirdhand Japanese import, like all cars in Kamchatka. We barreled along, past wooden shacks slanting in on themselves, ruins of fishing villages that dated from the days of the czars. The cratered highway seemed nearly as old.

Roman advanced a theory that I'd first heard in the headquarters of the Kronotsky Reserve, where a veteran scientist, one of Russell's staunchest opponents, had pulled me aside. "Forget the poachers," he said. "There's one power on this peninsula."

By all accounts a man of charm and ingenuity, businessman Anatoly Grigorievich Kovalenkov seemed to embody the best and worst of Russia's post-Communist evolution. Back in Soviet days, Kovalenkov had sat atop the regional gospromkhoz, the "state hunting enterprise" controlling the harvest of Kamchatka's game, fish, and fur. When the Soviet Union fell, the first spoils went, naturally, to those in the closest reach—and those with the firmest grip. Kovalenkov was no mobster, no bandit, but he'd succeeded in building an empire out of Soviet ashes when no one else could.

With only a handful of helicopters available on Kamchatka for taking out hunters and ecotourists alike, Kovalenkov's company, Krechet—"Gyrfalcon" in Russian—had for years enjoyed an unyielding monopoly on the tourism trade, turf that Kovalenkov, sources said, protected ruthlessly with help from a private corps of the peninsula's best guides, running it as a de facto preserve for his own hunting, fishing, and ecotourism clientele.

"Krechet has enjoyed a certain exclusivity," said Armen Grigorian, of the Biodiversity Conservation Center, Russia's largest environmental organization. Grigorian spent months last year writing a management plan for Kamchatka's protected areas. With considerable dexterity, he explained the tangled relationship between Krechet and the Kronotsky Reserve. "In the 1990s, all the reserves in Russia faced the same terrible problem: no money. Not for science, not for protection, and certainly not for any kind of ecotourism infrastructure." Kronotsky got into ecotourism for one reason: poverty. Tourism filled the reserve's budget. But much of the money, Grigorian said, "went to the side, under the table and into the pockets of local businessmen."

For his part, Russell at first thought he could work with Kovalenkov. After all, the chopper that ferried Chico, Rosie, and Biscuit to Kambalnoye had been provided by Krechet. For all his charisma, however, Enns had sensed that Kovalenkov was a "two-edged sword." Over the years, the Canadians' relations with the boss would sour, though it began with promise.

"When you came up with a new idea, an interesting project," Enns said, "he would say, ‘By all means, you can come under my roof. I'll protect you.' " She had used the right word—Kovalenkov is what's known in Russian as a krysha, a roof. Every city, town, and village in Russia has at least one krysha: a power broker who is both arbiter and protector.

Nothing, and no one, on Kamchatka is black-and-white. Conservationists are also hunting guides, and local bosses are among the community's most generous benefactors. Kovalenkov, in addition to his diverse business holdings, was known for his civic ventures, funding scientific research, aiding the region's decimated native peoples, and, at one point, launching a local television station.

"He was going to be at the head of every venture," said Igor Revenko, the former sanctuary biologist. "If you get him involved from the very beginning, he likes that. But try to do something on your own or with someone else—watch out."

In the mid-1990s, Krechet won a decree from the regional government for a long-term claim—some say for ten years, others up to 40—to the air rights from P.K. to the Valley of the Geysers, the most popular ecotourism attraction inside the Kronotsky Reserve. Nikolaenko had built a cabin in the scenic valley in the 1970s. One day in 1996, it burned down. The ground did not remain bare for long. A new hotel was built. Kovalenkov's company ran it.

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