República del Lejano Oriente
Arseniev was born in St. Petersburg, Russian Empire. His father, born a serf, became the chief of the Moscow District Railway. After a military education, Arseniev began his expeditions to the forests of the Far East. He lived in Vladivostok through the years of the Russian Civil War and was a Commissar for Ethnic Minorities (Komisar po delam inrodcheskim) of the independent Far Eastern Republic. After the Far Eastern Republic was absorbed by Soviet Russia in 1922 Arsenyev refused to emigrate and stayed in Vladivostok.