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Nikolay Yegorovich Turov

The Lineage

• Natasha Danilov, Invictus
  • Jonas Micheals, Invictus
    • James Stuart, Invictus
  • Martin Thomas, Invictus
    • Vasily Petrovich, Carthian
      • Nikolay Turov, Carthian

Character Ties

• Childe of Vasily Petrovich
• Query ithrail to work out character ties

Known Facts

• Turov is a Mekhet member of the Carthian Movement with direct ties to the Russian mafia.
• Arrived in Las Vegas with his sire, Vasily Petrovich in the late 1980's, from Russia, by way of New York.
• Speaks Russian and English. His English has a slight British (London) accent.

Description

Current History(work in progress)

• 1918: Nikolay was born in Kazan, Russia, to a serf-turned-Red-Guards-soldier, and a mother-turned-union-leader. His mother, father and older brothers become party members. He is raised to be a firm believer in the ideals of the revolution.

• 1923-1936: Grows up in the first generation of the Soviet primary and secondary education system. Displays unusual aptitude in memory and intelligence.

• 1936: Follows in his older brother's footsteps by seeking and being granted enrollment in the RKKA Frunze Academy (Red Army Academy). Enjoys a rigorous education in imperialist languages and cultures, revolutionary philosophy, combat training, infiltration, and tactics pursuant to a focus in military/strategic intelligence.

• 1941-1943: Serves as a minor officer in the Red Army during WWII. During his tenure he observes innumerable cruelties committed by both sides, both to each other and to their own people. While he expected as much from the fascists and capitalists, seeing the same if not worse being perpetrated by fellow Communists is a startling epiphany. His political-philosophical views begin to shift and narrow. Moscow, the upper brass, and the wild soldiers in other divisions might be corrupt and selfish, but he and the men around him are true revolutionaries and carry the pure flame of human hope, justice, and morality.

• 1943: He is recalled from the front and arrested by the secret police. He learns that his older brother has been accused of deserting the Army, which means that the entire family has been arrested pursuant to Stalin's general edict of collective familial punishment. Nikolay is not permitted to see any of his family members, and soon learns that his father has been executed and that he and the rest of his family are to be sent east to the gulag archipelago. None of his former military comrades speak out in his defense, and at his show trial he observes several of them vehemently fabricating stories for the prosecution about him colluding with the fascists and capitalists.

• 1944-1954: Serves 10 years of a life sentence at the Magadan prison camp in Siberia. In the savage, sub-human environs of the Siberian gulags, the combination of brutalily and exposure to innumerable exiled intelligentsia, coupled with his own background, creates in Nikolay a warped sort of predatory philosophy. He ultimately throws in his lot with the Bratva gangs and in time religiously accepts them and elements of their ethos as the raw stuff of which paradise is made, living proof that even the worst sort of men can become something immeasurably greater by subordinating the self to the group. In his mind, any so-called "crime" or "injustice" became virtue when done for the greater good (meaning the good of all mankind via the good of the Brotherhood, which is the vehicle of the true Revolution). Individual life is meaningless in and of itself, and only achieves value through service to Brotherhood. The prison bitch screaming for mercy is selfishly elevating self and individual desires above the needs of others. The bleeding man protesting his stolen food is an egoistic sinner, for others hunger. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. The moral man does not embrace himself, but instead embraces the self of group and humanity. The goals of the group and the greater race are transcendent, and to embrace them is to become as god.

• • Nikolay's military background initially alienates the Vory purists among the Bratva, men who could not be impressed by any degree of skill or viciousness and followed a quasi-spiritual criminal code. However, Nikolay's ability to make some of these hardened criminals feel not only morally clean, but spiritually superior, won him a few influential friends. The fact that he was starting to turn some of the gang into fanatically loyal servants, and also essentially giving the Vory leaders de facto religious authority in addition to temporal, didn't exactly hurt him either. In any case, these men arranged for his government affiliations to be "forgotten."

• 1955: Nikolay is "rehabilitated" by the CPSU and compulsorily transfered back into the army as a garrison grunt. In short order he manages to connect with local members of the Bratva and a arranges to be discharged from the army. He is reassigned to a "civilian support group" affiliated with the army, which was essentially a euphemism for working within the Bratva to smuggle black market items to corrupt officers, police and bureaucrats. In exchange Nikolay received cash, weapons, borrowed soldiers (the draft providing a large pool of de facto slave labor), and other favors. With one exception, Nikolay makes no attempt to locate or learn the fates of his family. To do so would be a selfish individualistic distraction. In spite of himself, however, he later burns considerable influence with the Vory and the larger Bratva to locate and abduct his deserter-brother and arrange for him to be convicted and sent to the Magadan gulag. This proves to be a source of continuing guilt, not for his brother but for his willingness to burn group resources for no other purpose than his own pleasure.

• 1960: Embrace.

• 1974-1986: Meets and becomes heavily influenced by Radical Collectivist and Hive corteries in the Carthian Movement throughout Eastern Europe. More specifically, he becomes exposed to ideas relating to using devotions and modern human technology and ideas as tools to weaken the shields around "self" and achieve a stronger and more perfect Unity. In addition to the obvious temporal and political advantages of such an organization of self and group, Nikolay increasingly sees such methods as necessary to protect the Kindred from rising human power (technology in particular), and also as a tool against the beast and other Kindred banes. One of the more practical effects of his studies under these Carthian factions is the development in him of a strong fascination with Auspex, which quite literally involves extending one's consciousness beyond the self.

• 1986: As the Cold War draws to a close and the Iron Curtain falls, Vasily and Nikolay travel to North America, landing in New York City (the city of Vasily's embrace and brief sojurn forty years ago). This is motivated in large part by Vasily's desire to track down his kindred relations as his blood thickens. However, they are unable to to find them in NYC, and moreover found it almost impossible to crack into the underbelly of such a long-defined city. Still, for almost five years, the pair made the 'Rotten Apple' their home before continuing westward.

• 1991: Came to Las Vegas from New York City with Vasily in effort establish themselves in a younger city with vibrant criminal possibilities, less of an entrenched Kindred hierarchy, and hopefully a more receptive Movement.

• • Unlike his sire, Nikolay has few if any qualms about interacting with governments or social groups outside of a criminal context. His presence is noted in many different spheres of the city, but typically is felt as the second volley inevitably striking in concert with Vasily. In typical Carthian fashion, these collective attack and defense strategies enable the duo to carve a deeper niche in city influences than either would have been capable of alone.
  • "The Borzoi" seems to have an uncanny ability to be in two places at once and handle far more trouble than expected of an individual Kindred, increasing his reputation and demand for his services. Eventually, it emerges that this was a marketing/status scheme --for a time there were two Kindred going by this name and the other was Nikolay.

• 1994: Frustrated with the reality that the Kindred of Las Vegas had little interest in killing their egos to merge with his utopian collectivist vision, Nikolay increasingly throws himself into venues more amenable to at least some form of his ideas. More specifically, he becomes interested in the notion of changing the future by controlling the education of the young. He becomes particularly involved in the universities and education system in the city. Superficially, this serves as a publicity tool to help his pet bureaucrats and politicans polish their community credentials by getting young hoodlums off the streets and into schools. (The fact that may of these young hoodlums were connected to Nikolay and Vasily's black market operations and were simply bringing the crime to the campuses, of course, was kept quiet and provided the Brotherhood with a double-win). However, the majority of Nikolay's energies in this venue were devoted to trying to influence political and philosophical curriculum and scout for amenable young minds to ghoul or embrace.

• 2000: Nikolay is particularly displeased by the Prince's ban on new embraces, largely because this effectively kills his hope of finding and ultimately embracing one of the college students he's been carefully grooming for the past several years. While he doesn't entirely abandon his university project, he begins to shift some of his energies towards renewing his efforts to win over other Kindred to adopt at least pieces of his ideals, confident in the power of his cause and looking only for cracks to sleep the seeds of Bratva into.

• 2009: The threat of a turf war arises between Vasily and Alexi over control of certain underworld assets. Nikolay manages to calm his sire's wrath, indirectly reminding him that his indignation and desire for vengeance are based on individual concerns rather than the interests of the Vorey. The two ultimately conclude that the risk to the Brotherhood as a whole is too great in this particular instance given the relatively small potential gains at issue. Victory over Alexi risks drawing in his sire, and victory over the Circle risks drawing in Invictus opportunists. The dispute is resolved relatively amicably.

• 2010: Begins to increasingly interact with and seek spiritual counsel from certain Acolytes, largely as a result of greater familiarity and respect for them after their near-influence-war the prior year. In particular, Nikolay displays interest in concepts relating to meditation and links between spiritualism and platonic idealism with respect to achieving higher levels of understanding through subordination of self and matter to group and spirit.

• Present

Random Musings

• In the eyes of the Brotherhood:
  • There is neither clan nor covenant; there are only brothers.
  • There is no sex, gender, or race; there are only brothers.
  • There is no lineage. All are brothers. The Brotherhood is everyone's sire, and everyone's childe.
    • Familial loyalty to a childe or sire or any other "kin" who are not members of The Brotherhood is anathema. To place kin above The Brotherhood is to exchange the sacred for a meaningless quirk of human genetics or selfish personal conceit. There is nothing wrong with befriending, allying or interacting with those who happen to be relatives, but only when this is consistent with the Will of the Brotherhood. In other words, when I look at you I do not see my childe. Instead I see the words and deeds of a Kindred outsider, and I will judge and treat you accordingly. The Unity does not permit you to serve two masters because it is impossible to serve both with one's whole heart.

• Through the Unity we are able to achieve harmony out of the dialectic of age and youth. The Unity is as old and as young as the spirits within. We are the Elder become infant; Methuselah reborn in the blood of an infinite legion. We are the child on Christ's lap pointing the way to the Kingdom of Heaven.

• Consider the myth of Proteus. You cannot seize me, for I have no form. You cannot kill me, for I have no body. I exist in the bonds of Brotherhood, in the ether of Unity. Fools polish their idols of self like old Ozymandias while we sing of a god of spirit and selfless Unity. When distant scholars brush the dust off your edifice, we will be there behind their eyes singing still.

• We believe in perfect freedom of discourse and debate within the Unity. However, when the majority has expressed its Will the conversation ends. To defy the majority is to pit your will again will of all. In so doing, you prove yourself an anarch in spirit, which means the seedling of a tyrant.

• Remember that the individual is the smallest minority group. Beware of those who speak of minority or individual "rights" and the power to block the will of the majority. Beware especially of those who would seek to countermand the decisions of the People, for this is also the power to rule them. He who would defy the wishes of his brothers in his heart dreams himself their master.

• We are organized around the single principle that all life and action are meaningless unless and until linked together in service of the common good. No single stone composes our Temple, and none has value alone.

• He who has poured out his soul into the oceans of the Unity has achieved infinite life, infinite power, and infinite understanding.