'Dersu Uzala'

I had this extensive, three-part mega-article in The New Yorker about a man's treak across Siberia.

If you are fascinated by Russia and travel writing, it's well deserving of the time it takes to get through the 30,000 words.

When you think of Siberia, you think of gulags and cold. In actuality, it's just northern Russia. Not unlike the northern United States. Sure it gets cold, but it's not a place that is desolate, that people don't visit.

Siberia is just a bunch of cities and villages. Some torn apart by pollution, crime or poverty. But they're still cities with roads, churchs and people.

Anyway, the writer mentions the film Dersu Uzala.

It's a film based on the true story -- based on the memoirs of V.K. Arseniev -- of a hunter and trapper, Dersu Uzala. He is a Nanai, a Chinese-Russian native in the Russian far east. He served as a guide for the Russian army in the Sikhote-Alin mountain range in eastern Siberia.

Dersu not only served as a guide, but he developed a friendship with the army captain, who took him into his home once Dersu's sight starting going. Unable to live the life he was used to in the wild, Uzala's spark faded in domestication. Eventually he died in the wild.