The splendor and poverty of Kamchatka: life-threatening smuggled caviar, ghost towns and the boundless greed of poachers

When I first came to Kamchatka 13 years ago, I was, to put it mildly, in awe of the splendor and poverty of this land. On the one hand, it is an incredible nature, on the other hand, an absolutely consumerist approach. Then came the idea of ​​creating a film that would help the people of Kamchatka understand the uniqueness of their little homeland; after all, I, a newcomer, felt it right away.

The film “Red Salmon” was originally conceived as a work of a discrediting nature. But then we realized that their task was not to provoke a hostile reaction, but to demonstrate the importance of dialogue between various camps.

In my opinion, the essential asset of Kamchatka is not the energy of minerals or volcanoes, but sockeye and salmon in general. Because it is they who bring enormous amounts of energy from the ocean to this northland, making it so diverse and vivid, biologically.

Sockeye salmon feed on the entire ecosystem: bald eagles, bears, foxes and other animals, which is why it is so important to preserve their population. In Kamchatka there are entire abandoned ghost towns that lived solely on fishing.

Hundreds of thousands of tons were caught, there was nothing left to catch, and people were forced to leave. Some poach, they are close to resources, but there is no work. So it is important not to ban, to ambush, to impose fines, but to change, to offer an alternative way of feeding the family.

The fight against poaching, which flourished on the reservation in the 2000s, was started by my brother Tichon. He assembled a team of trusted people, mostly from other regions. And my uncle, the film director and cinematographer Dmitry Spilenok, worked in the task force of a client in southern Kamchatka.

The scale of the smuggling was enormous. For example, in 2007 a brigade of five to six people collected around 500 kilograms of sockeye caviar every night.

They were handled by seven to eight people. Smuggling had to be done. Such caviar is dangerous for health; after all, poachers don’t have a chance to store them properly, so they pour a lot of septic tank on them so they don’t spoil.

Once captured by poachers who shot a bear and its three cubs. When asked why he did it, he replied unharmed: “Well, we needed grease to erase it, my granddaughter is sick.” Therefore, it has become clear that it is necessary to get closer to the young inhabitants of Kamchatka to form a new generation that lives in harmony with the nature that nourishes them.

We organize ecological camps for children. Although after the tragedy at Lake Siam (14 people died there) it is very difficult to get a permit. But most importantly, Kamchatka needs to form a different economy: impressions should be based on cheap tourism.

In practice, this was the only way to save a region that had so miraculously survived just because it had been closed for a long time – there was a large military base there in Soviet times.

2008 The Kronock Reserve and the South Kamchatka Reserve received around 3.5 thousand. ecotourists, last year – more than 13 thousand. Infrastructure is being formed: hotels, airports. And the poachers are already outraged, unable to do their dirty work.

Thanks to this type of traveler he also drew attention to another important problem. Gold from alluvial mines is mined directly from spawning rivers, and seekers’ devices have flooded the stream. And there are salmon pits to put caviar in. This was noticed by tourists, reported on social media, has reached the local government, which is currently changing the legal framework.

It seems to me that ecotourism in Russia still does not differ from mass tourism. We are talking about an instrument for nature conservation in nature reserves. Here are some principles to follow. In particular, involve the local population so that you have a source of income. Second, use the funds obtained for the implementation of nature protection projects. Third, carefully calculate the anthropogenic burden on nature.

In this way, tourism will configure a new economy based on the rational use of resources.
So far, for some reason, we have extreme extremes: “it does not allow anything” is a sad story from the Caucasus, where crowds have gnawed on the rarest plants.