The story presented to readers tells about one of the geological expeditions that went in search of heavy hydrocarbons (oil and gas) in which the author was lucky enough to participate. The parties worked in the middle reaches of the river on a section of 150 kilometers between the Osharovo and Kuyumba trading posts back in 1978. By that time, only small oil deposits had been explored in the Podkamennaya basin (in the Kuyumba area), and there was still no talk of their industrial development. The wild, pristine beauty of taiga nature in the river valley and the Podkamennaya Tunguska itself is shown, its treachery (especially for beginners), seen through the eyes of a participant in this expedition. The author talks about the unusual fates of the people he met, about the taiga, about the animals living in it, about his attitude towards everything he saw and heard. I think that the reader will be interested in visiting and spending an entire field season together with a participant in the taiga field expedition on the amazing and legendary Podkamennaya Tunguska. It will be a pleasure to race on a light motor boat along several of its rapids and rifts, to plow along and across its expanses over a fairly significant area, to fish in the river and tributaries, to walk through the surrounding taiga, to hunt and just look at the local animals. That is, to find out what turned out to be, if not hidden, then a significantly muted phenomenon of the Tunguska meteorite, being more beautiful, and often no less interesting, than the sensational explosion of a space alien.