Ussurian region

The first part of the famous dilogy (which continues with the novel Děrsu Uzala) tells about two expeditions undertaken in 1902 and 1906 by the Russian traveller and writer Vladimir Arsenyev. Already during the first expedition the author met the native hunter and tracker Dersu from the Uzala family. The two men, coming from completely different cultures and backgrounds, met again four years later, and over the course of a long and arduous journey, a strong friendship gradually emerged between them. The book, which stands between a factual travelogue and an adventure novel, introduces the reader to the wild nature of the Ussuri region and to the local peoples and their everyday life, customs and religious ideas. It tells about life in the taiga in a colourful and engaging way, where every misstep can mean death, where hunters don't kill animals for fun, but purely for sustenance, and where people help each other survive, without asking for anything in return. The trilogy has been published in numerous editions and translated into more than thirty languages. It was also inspired by the famous Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. He made a film based on it, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language (Non-English Language) Film in 1975.