Vladimir Klavdievich Arsenyev (1972 - 1930)

Vladimir Klavdiyevich Arsenyev was a Russian explorer of the Far East who recounted his travels in a series of books telling of his military journeys to the Ussuri basin with Dersu Uzala, a native hunter, from 1902 to 1907. He was the first to describe numerous species of Siberian flora.

Arsenyev was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. His father was a former serf who had risen to become the chief of the Moscow District Railway.

After receiving military education, he was sent to the Far East as a surveyor. He lived Vladivostok during the years of the Russian Civil War and was a Commissar on Ethnic Minorities of the independent Far Eastern Republic.

After the Far Eastern Republic was abolished in 1922, Arsenyev stayed in Vladivostok.

Arsenyev is the most famous for authoring many books about his explorations, including some 60 works on the geography, wildlife and ethnography of the regions he traveled. Arsenyev's most famous book, Dersu Uzala, is the author's memoirs of three expeditions in the Ussurian taiga, in Northern Asia along the Sea of Japan and North to Vladivostok. The book is named after Arsenyev's guide, an Ussurian native of the Nanai/Goldi tribe. This book was filmed twice: in 1961, by the Soviet director Agasi Babayan, and in 1975 by the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. The latter Dersu Uzala version won that year's Oscar for the Best Foreign-Language Film.

The third book of Arsenyev's trilogy, In the Sikhote-Alin Mountains was published only in 1937.

Arsenyev died at the age of 57 in 1930. His widow, Margarita Nikolaevna Arsenyeva was arrested in 1937. She was charged in that alleged she was a member of the underground spy organization headed by her husband. Military court sentenced her to death. Arsenyev's daughter Natalya also was arrested in April 1941 and sent to the GULAG.