Morris: I'm on my way to the hermitage of a man named Vasyl.
People from all over Eastern Europe come to Shypit
to camp during the summer months,
but only one person lives here year round.
He's considered a guardian of the forest,
and apparently, he also has a chain saw.
♪♪
[ Distant, echoing laugh ]
[ Meowing ]
Hi.
I'm Hamilton.
Good to meet you.
Hi.
I'm Hamilton.
Good to meet you.
♪♪
Beautiful, wow.
Wow.
Amazing Boletus edulis.
♪♪
How long have you lived here?
Why did you move here?
[ Chuckles ]
It smells like drying fungus of many different species.
Is this kombucha?
[ Laughs ]
♪♪
How do you survive here in the winter?
[ Laughs ]
I'm not sure.
Aspects of it are attractive to me.
I like that we're in such close proximity
to so many interesting species of mushrooms.
If we go out hunting, could we find more tomorrow?
Yes, I'd like to go hunting tomorrow.
Morris: There's always some uncertainty with mushrooms.
You never know if you'll find them.
It's dependent on the rain,
it's dependent on the humidity,
and it's dependent on certain unknowable factors
that have to do with the life cycle and nutrients of the soil.
Amanita is a mycorrhizal genus.
It needs to grow in association with the roots of trees.
The Amanita is everywhere, you guys.
Amazing.
This is the reason that no one has been able
to fruit Amanita muscaria
under artificial laboratory conditions,
and so it is a mushroom that is always found
in close association with trees.
[ Laughs ]
Crazy family.
Five, six, seven, eight Amanitas.
Amanitas everywhere.
All the different stages of growth are visible here.
Here you can see what will later
become the white spots or warts on the cap,
are just barely starting to break away,
but at the beginning, it's an envelope
called "the universal veil."
It encloses the entirety of the fungus,
so here, the red, the cap,
is just beginning to peak through the universal veil,
and it is a magnificent sight to behold.
It really look like candy.
I just want to try it.
[ Laughs ]
It's interesting what he can tell us.
It's an amazing haul.
Beautiful.
Wow.
♪♪
Where did you learn this technique?
He also ate these mushrooms?
So, when people come to you,
are they looking for treatment?
Why do you think they want the mushrooms?
You dedicated your career to developing new medicines
based on the chemicals in this mushroom,
but there are people that would say the mushroom
itself is a medicine and that it's perfect the way it is.
What do you think of that?
I think it is...crazy.
Really?
Yeah.
Some ibotenic acid may go into the brain.
It is neurotoxic.
It is a powerful neurotoxin.
I would seriously warn against this kind of use.
I know people who take the natural products as medicine.
They can do absolutely crazy things.