Post by Apostolis on Sept 7, 2010 1:18:08 GMT
Account E-Mail: EDITED
Name: Apostolis Petrov Sokolov
Nationality: Russian
What Army will Your Character Serve Beneath? Red Army Armored Corps
Character History:
Petr Fyodovich Sokolov had always enjoyed life in the upper classes of Russian society, his family owning a good portion of land surrounding the small town of Kichany. During the 18th and 19th centuries the Sokolovs played defining role in colonizing the northern Baltic, banding together native Finns and Russian settlers to found the trading outpost of Kichany with a charter from Tsaress Anna of Russia herself, setting in motion a small trading empire that would continue for a century and a half. The small outpost started by gaining most of its annual income from furs, animal oils, and other hunting related activities, trading with the massive St. Petersburg to quench the noble’s thirst for fine pelts for clothing. In the 1801 a hunting party led by a member of the Sokolov family stumbled upon a vein of coal running through the surrounding deciduous forest,, spinning the economical focus from rifles and skins to picks and mining shafts. Despite its small size Kichany managed to become quite wealthy, most of the town’s citizens working in the mining force while the Sokolovs and the other prominent families in the area could leech profit off of the badly needed heating source. Unfortunately, the veins of coal that ran through the surrounding countryside were smaller than first imagined. The last chunk of the black rock was extracted in 1897, forcing the town to find some other source of financial sustenance.
Petr Sokolov’s father; Fyodor, was known for working closely with the town and helping bring much-needed modernization in to Kichany. Fyodor Sokolov established a new-world style sawmill on the outskirts of the town, cutting cheap and plentiful Nordic wood from the surrounding countryside. Petr was raised in comfort and wealth while the peasants in Kichany slaved away at menial tasks. During his teenage years Petr became preoccupied with the plight of the common folk, staring at them from the Sokolov’s large manor overlooking the town square. He watched them, walking with sallow faces, eyes sunken with hunger and skin tight on their bones. The Sokolov’s son, just sixteen, voiced his opinion that higher wages should be given at the sawmill so that the peasants could feed themselves better to his father, but was starkly shot down. The argument escalated, Fyodor striking Petr when the boy shouted insults at his patriarch. Petr made a great deal of his split lip, spitting blood in his father’s face before storming out of the manor and hiking to the nearest military outpost. The Sokolov boy faked his age and enlisted, which was no great feat. To join the Czar’s military was as simple as signing your name on a slip of paper and you were sent off to a training camp. No background checks were initiated. Fyodor was not notified and assumed his only son had run away, which in a way was true.
Petr was given rudimentary training and deemed fine enough for an officer’s corps. He was shipped to Saint Petersburg and attended a war academy and was taught the finer points of tactics and strategy, qualifying him for a Leitenant’s commission. He was then assigned to the academy as a military bookkeeper and a backup physical training instructor. This job satisfied him, giving him enough academic stimuli while allowing him still to have an active part in the day-to-day affairs of the school. But the young officer was destined for greater things, a high-ranking man offering Petr a scholarship to enlist in the Cossack corps, a traditional but rather useless Slavic military order of horsemen. Leitenant Sokolov agreed to this with great fervor, seeing it as a chance to greatly further his military career. His induction into the Cossacks brought him to the capital of Imperial Russia in April 1914, training in the arts of military etiquette and horsemanship, earning the Cossack uniform of a dark coat and a feathered grey fur ushanka. He also was given his ceremonial sword, which was given to him at a lavish banquet at which Petr Sokolov and the other Cossack inductees were allowed to shake hands with Czar Nicholas himself.
In the august of 1914 Germany mobilized its armed forces and thrust into western Russia, the Czar forced to mobilize Russia’s own armies and counterattack. Petr, however, was ordered to stay in Moscow and be part of the Cossack guard, goose-stepping in the square to keep up the commoner’s morale and standing in front of the Imperial palace with shouldered rifles and stiff the stiff gait of a sentry. Petr slowly watched the Empire crumble from the strenuous activity of wartime, political officials easily corrupted, and the Czar himself become useless against the growing debt that threatened to flood Russia’s economy. By 1916 Petr had become greatly skeptical that the Czardom would last any longer in modern society, secretly sympathizing with the growing Bolshevik presence. Some of the Cossacks also felt this way, but most of them remained loyal to the White faction.
When the Bolsheviks organized into a functioning force in 1917 Petr left the Cossacks and rallied behind Socialism, joining the riots in Moscow. He moved into one of the Bolshevik party encampments outside of capital, for if he could not go to the White-controlled Cossack barracks. At one of the fires that burned against the unforgiving February winter he met Thekla, a ginger-haired Socialist woman who was in Moscow rallying with her brother. Petr and Thekla soon embarked on a passionate, fast-burning romance that ended with her impregnation in May of 1917. The young, politically active couple supported Bolshevik cause continually, the prospect of equal wages and a single class wondrous in Petr’s mind. They followed Vladimir Lenin with near-fanatical fervor, the pregnant woman and her ex-Cossack partner continually fighting for their beliefs.
But the October Revolution, bringing their favorite candidate Lenin to power, brought great change to the couple’s life. The Bolsheviks now had a massive handhold in Western Russia, slowly chiseling the White movement from the face of the motherland. Petr and Thekla were delighted to have their party in command of the nation, joining the cheering crowds and rejoicing in the writhing crowds before Lenin as he declared a new era for the Motherland. But, for better or for worse, the couple decided that turbulent and dangerous Moscow, which was just beginning to kick off the Russian Civil War, was no place to give birth to a child. Petr and Thekla traveled by rail to Soviet-controlled Petrograd before journeying to Petr’s birthplace of Kichany, preparing to request his disgruntled father to let the couple occupy the manor until he and Thekla had been properly wed and could find a home of their own.
When they arrived at Kichany they found the heavy Bolshevik presence had reformed the town, dissolving the aristocratic foundation and turning it into a powerhouse for the war effort. The lumber mill that the Sokolov family had owned and operated had been repossessed by the state, churning out wood that the Bolsheviks paid well for, the millers earning a universal salary under the watchful eye of a commissar issued to oversee the productions. Petr later found the manor vacant and recovered a record that Fyodor had boarded a passenger ship to America, fleeing the class-equaling Communism and hoping to rebuild his factory in the Capitalist paradise of the United States. Petr and Thekla occupied the echoing hallways of the Sokolov house, inheriting all of the fine velvet furniture and oak furnishing to themselves. The couple wed in a small forest clearing by an ancient Sweboz pagan stone garden that had served the townspeople as a ritual chapel for centuries, a non-religious Communist official reading their vows. Only close friends witnessed the kiss that bound child-swollen Thekla and the Cossack Petr together as Sokolovs.
It was only three weeks after the ceremony that their first child was born. Thekla began to endure labor pains two days beforehand and Petr had called a pair of midwives to the manor, fretting for the wellbeing of his beloved spouse. The midwives drew the curtains of the master bedroom and lay Thekla upon the red-canopied bed, hoping to bring upon nativity quickly and have the infant out in a handful of hours, but fate did not agree. The soon-to-be mother continuous muscle contractions causing great pain and discomfort, but the baby ceased to move from the womb. The midwives tried various remedies including two pots of water, one boiling and another iced, evaporate into the room. One of the obstetricians gathered flowers and herbs from the late summer forest to both feed to the woman and leave them in the room for their aroma, hoping that one of the two would stimulate childbirth. The midwives were forced to sleep in the manor, taking shifts in case the baby decided to emerge in the wee hours of the morning.
On the morning of the second day Petr awoke to the sound of his wife’s moans. He had slept in the sitting room due to the master bedroom being occupied, washing in the laundry room due to the bathroom’s entrance also being inaccessible. Petr attempted to read in the library but soon found that impossible, for Thekla’s increasing screams seemed to bore into his mind. He instead exited the manor and took care of the animals, stumbling upon the grisly remains of a pair of chickens murdered by a fox during the previous night. As he was discarding of their carcasses a midwife informed him that his son had finally been delivered and that Thekla was awaiting him in the master bedroom. Their son was in his mother’s embrace, completely still but breathing normally. They named him Apostolis after his mother’s brother, hovering around him like first-time parents do. He was oddly quiet, staying still and sucking on a pacifier while laying in the silk-lined crib in the crèche, suckling silently and playing without a sound.
In 1919, the second year of Apostolis’s birth, Petr was offered a state-issued job of overseeing the sawmill. The man agreed, delighted with the steady equal-wage pay. The couple’s infant son was enrolled into a public day-nursery in Kichany while his father worked and his mother tended to the manor, growing fond of the caretakers that doted on him the day. The nursery was built alongside the railroad tracks, locomotives vibrating the building and waking the infants when they passed. Thekla was impregnated again in January of 1919 and gave birth to twin girls, Svetlana and Leva, both small and dark haired with frail physiques and a passion for laughing from the belly. They too were enrolled in the nursery, the caretakers allowing the toddler Apostolis to interact with his sisters. They lived a happy life, the picture of a self-respecting family thriving of the fertile soil of Communism.
Only four months after birth Leva was found in the nursery frighteningly still in her cradle, Svetlana and Apostolis sleeping quietly in the adjacent cribs. She was pronounced dead by Kichany’s local doctor, a victim of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. The Sokolovs were devastated to have one of their own killed so suddenly, the sorrow never fully parting from their heart. The two children were too young to understand the concept of death, simply standing in their somber black garb as their sibling was lowered into the small family cemetery, and then simply gone. Petr accepted Leva’s death as a random act of natural selection that should be grieved but not dwelled on, preferring to deal with the present. Thekla, however, believed her daughter’s death to be some fault of the nursery. Surely the mold that was growing on the wall near the crib had infiltrated her lungs or the sheets tucked too tight had suffocated her. She insisted on keeping the children home for the remainder of their infant years, only her caring for the most precious commodity in her life.
As soon as Apostolis and Svetlana approached the ripe age of four their mother ceased to dress them in their lacy infant bedclothes and hustled them toward maturity. Apostolis began to wear miniature white linen shirts and earth-colored trousers and jackets, leather caps covering his flaxen hair and shading his alarmingly periwinkle eyes as he roamed around the grounds of the manor, playing with his tin soldiers and pighide balls while his sister was read picture books and taught how to boil water for tea. Their residence was built farther into the tranquil forest than most of Kichany’s other homes, the four mile walk into the town’s center rarely traveled by anyone except their father, his state-issued automobile carving deep tracks into the spongy mud of the drive.
Apostolis first educated at six years of age, his father driving him to the schoolhouse on his way to the mill. The boy felt dreadfully out of place in his chrome grey jacket and knickers, his leather satchel full of books and writing utensils all too heavy when slung over his bony shoulder. Fortunately he soon grew to enjoy school, growing accustomed to memorizing arithmetic and playing football with the other boys in the recess yard. His teachers referred to him as intelligent but not exceptional, the Sokolov child a great knower of odd facts while lacking in more conventional subjects. He particularly liked science, enjoying lessons about leaves and tropisms and such. He enjoyed hiking with his family and friends in the Nordic woodlands around Kichany, discovering little creatures that his companions and he would prod with sticks and lock in jars. He grew more adventurous as he grew older, taking a great interest in swimming and diving in the pool at the gymnasium.
When Apostolis reached the age of ten he joined the Vsesoyuznaya pionerskaya organizatsiya, or ‘Young Pioneers of the Soviet Union’, a scouting organization for secondary school members. He began as a junior pioneer, an underling to the leather-hard teenage unit leaders. The Kichany regiment routinely hiked, fished, and swam in the lakes and woodlands around the tiny Russian village. Sokolov was one of the star pioneers, a perfect Communist child; tough, wiry, and full of guile. He had a logical answer for every problem Mother Nature threw at him, his solutions coming straight from the Young Pioneers handbook. As he approached thirteen and fourteen he was highly respected by the Young Pioneer’s community, achieving the supreme physical fitness medal and was a junior unit leader. At fifteen he earned the Red Diving and Swimming award for journeying to Shisselburg and swimming across the swift waters of the Neva, touching the opposite bank, and swimming back. After his swimming achievement he was promoted to unit leader for Kichany, proudly leading the youth of Russia’s tomorrow for the final year of his Pioneer service.
At sixteen Apostolis joined the Komsomol, aiding in government projects in Kichany. He, with his fellow Komsomol members, erected a new postal office in his hometown and his name and those of his comrades were carved into the keystone of the building. He proudly wore the badges on his white-and-blue uniform, eagerly waiting the time where he could join the military and fully serve the U.S.S.R. He served in the Komsomol until graduation from high school, deciding to enlist in the Red Army. He had briefly flirted with the idea of joining the Red Airforce, but the idea of flying was alien and rather frightening to him. He was sent to basic training in Leningrad in December of 1940, the reality of being a raw recruit weighing on his shoulders. Apostolis and his fellow conscripts were repeatedly humiliated by their commanding officers, forced on long marches in full parade dress through the streets, and fed only black bread and thin beet stew. He realized that in the Red Army you either had to get tough and become as hard as the NCO’s that trained them or drop into the ranks of the Ryadovi, surviving on pittance and being the lowest of the low. Apostolis graduated basic training and was accepted into an officer’s academy in St. Petersburg, exiting with the rank of Mladshii Leitenant. He was then forced to decide between the infantry, artillery, and armored corps. He chose the armored corps partly because of his size. He was rather small and wiry, and the armored corps preferred petite men for their tanks. He was soon added to a unit of tanks and set on guard on the western border of the Soviet Union.
Military Rank: Starshii Leitenant or Kapitan
Writing Sample:
T-26
Kapitan Sokolov cursed as mud splattered onto his binoculars’ lenses for the second time since he came out of the hatch. The damned German artillery was woefully inaccurate, and although the Heer rangefinders knew the general direction the Soviet tanks were most of the shells were lost in the mud that sucked at the T-26’s treads. Three other tanks were concealed on the ridge, splattered with grime churned from the German shells. The underbrush was rather good cover, shells cracking spindly oak bows instead of the thin armor of the archaic T-26. They were to wait in the on the ridgeline until infantry support came through and was able to attack the German guns. The tanks were then supposed to support the Strelkovy platoon as it spearheaded into the valley, hopefully eliminating the dug-in artillery.
Apostolis wiped the glass of his worn binoculars with the smooth fire-retardant blue of his tanker jumpsuit, the garment pulled over his coarse mustard-colored infantry tunic. “Coming down, Paplov.” He warned the squat, bulky gunner, for Paplov’s station was directly below the hatch. The gunner grunted in response. Sokolov bent down into the tank, pulling the hatch shut behind him and latching it shut. “We’ve got nothing. Shells coming in steadily but just as inaccurate as ever. No sign of the Strelkovy either.” Apostolis muttered, throwing himself into the leather-bound commander’s seat. Ryadovi Gorky, the mouse-faced 19-year-old driver, spoke up. “When do you think the infantry will arrive? I’m tired of waiting here. And fucking hungry.” Kapitan Sokolov sighed, unfolding a map from his jumpsuit’s pocket and a compass from the ledge next to his commander’s seat. “No telling, comrade Gorky. We have no reports from aerial surveillance.” He said, motioning to the radio in the back of the tank. “Until we do, we have no indication of the infantry’s position. You should sit tight and mind the wheel. Some of these shells might get too close for comfort and relocating would be a smart move.” Gorky turned his back and drummed his palms on the steering wheel.
About five minutes later a panicked scream made Sokolov’s crew jump. Just seconds after the cry a plink reverberated throughout the chassis, the telltale sign of a small arms projectile making contact with the armored plating. Gorky cursed, leaning up on the wheel to stare out of his small viewport. Paplov started to rotate the turret, loading one of the big shells into the main gun. “Hold your fire!” Sokolov shouted, maneuvering the small knobs on the radio. A message was coming through on the command frequency. Sokolov reached it, the voice of their unit Commissar coming through. “German infantry coming up on both flanks! Anti-tank rifles! Open fire, but hold your ground! The Strelkovy must reach you!” Apostolis cursed before yelling to Paplov. “Open fire! Machine gun! Quickly!” Gorky threw his weight at the wheel, trying to get the T-26 into a better position. Apostolis ran to the machine gun port, for it was the commander’s duty to man the anti-infantry weapon.
Sokolov had just reached the small machine gun when the anti-tank round pierced the armored exterior. It entered the left side, making the crew’s ears ring as it passed through. It whizzed through the interior with a dazzle of light, disemboweling Gorky as it exited the right side. The nineteen-year-old’s entrails were strewn across the walls, his lifeless and battered body laying in a heap under the steering wheel. Apostolis and Paplov had both been showered in blood, soaking through their blue jumpsuits and staining their mustard tunics. “Shit, shit, shit! The fuel is on fire! Shit!” The gunner yelled, pointing to a flaming ball by the exit hole. Apostolis shouted a warning and dragged Paplov up and towards the hatch, unlatching it as they went. Paplov ripped the PPSH-41 off the tank’s hull before they left the burning interior, the weapon used for close combat in case of bailing out. They exited into a hail of German machine gun bullets, taking cover behind the tanks treads and firing back, Paplov with his PPSH and Apostolis with his Tokarev pistol.
“What shall wit do, comrade Kapitan?” Paplov asked Sokolov, screaming over the din of battle. Apostolis fired the last round of his clip, hitting a German soldier in the jugular vein. “We make for those trees over there. We will be safe until the Strelkovy comes.” Paplov nodded, eager to leave the dangerous cover of the burning tank. Apostolis slammed another magazine into his pistol and chambered a round by pulling back the slide. “On the count of three.” He said to Paplov. “One…Two…Three!” They both leaped out of cover, firing in a torrent to cover themselves. They made it to the copse of trees safely, skidding behind the large humps of roots as bullets kicked up dirt in front of them. Paplov stood up to fire a burst upon the enemy, but the Germans were too quick. A bullet smashed into the brawny Russian’s chest, sending him sprawling onto his back. Apostolis bent over his friend, wiping the blood from Paplov’s chin with his sleeve. “Comrade? Comrade Paplov?” Sokolov asked, panicked. The gunner’s eyes were glassy. What was he to do now?
[Thank you for looking at this. If it is not enough to make Kapitan, or at least Starshii Leitenant, please let me rework it. I really want the rank. Thanks.]
Name: Apostolis Petrov Sokolov
Nationality: Russian
What Army will Your Character Serve Beneath? Red Army Armored Corps
Character History:
Petr Fyodovich Sokolov had always enjoyed life in the upper classes of Russian society, his family owning a good portion of land surrounding the small town of Kichany. During the 18th and 19th centuries the Sokolovs played defining role in colonizing the northern Baltic, banding together native Finns and Russian settlers to found the trading outpost of Kichany with a charter from Tsaress Anna of Russia herself, setting in motion a small trading empire that would continue for a century and a half. The small outpost started by gaining most of its annual income from furs, animal oils, and other hunting related activities, trading with the massive St. Petersburg to quench the noble’s thirst for fine pelts for clothing. In the 1801 a hunting party led by a member of the Sokolov family stumbled upon a vein of coal running through the surrounding deciduous forest,, spinning the economical focus from rifles and skins to picks and mining shafts. Despite its small size Kichany managed to become quite wealthy, most of the town’s citizens working in the mining force while the Sokolovs and the other prominent families in the area could leech profit off of the badly needed heating source. Unfortunately, the veins of coal that ran through the surrounding countryside were smaller than first imagined. The last chunk of the black rock was extracted in 1897, forcing the town to find some other source of financial sustenance.
Petr Sokolov’s father; Fyodor, was known for working closely with the town and helping bring much-needed modernization in to Kichany. Fyodor Sokolov established a new-world style sawmill on the outskirts of the town, cutting cheap and plentiful Nordic wood from the surrounding countryside. Petr was raised in comfort and wealth while the peasants in Kichany slaved away at menial tasks. During his teenage years Petr became preoccupied with the plight of the common folk, staring at them from the Sokolov’s large manor overlooking the town square. He watched them, walking with sallow faces, eyes sunken with hunger and skin tight on their bones. The Sokolov’s son, just sixteen, voiced his opinion that higher wages should be given at the sawmill so that the peasants could feed themselves better to his father, but was starkly shot down. The argument escalated, Fyodor striking Petr when the boy shouted insults at his patriarch. Petr made a great deal of his split lip, spitting blood in his father’s face before storming out of the manor and hiking to the nearest military outpost. The Sokolov boy faked his age and enlisted, which was no great feat. To join the Czar’s military was as simple as signing your name on a slip of paper and you were sent off to a training camp. No background checks were initiated. Fyodor was not notified and assumed his only son had run away, which in a way was true.
Petr was given rudimentary training and deemed fine enough for an officer’s corps. He was shipped to Saint Petersburg and attended a war academy and was taught the finer points of tactics and strategy, qualifying him for a Leitenant’s commission. He was then assigned to the academy as a military bookkeeper and a backup physical training instructor. This job satisfied him, giving him enough academic stimuli while allowing him still to have an active part in the day-to-day affairs of the school. But the young officer was destined for greater things, a high-ranking man offering Petr a scholarship to enlist in the Cossack corps, a traditional but rather useless Slavic military order of horsemen. Leitenant Sokolov agreed to this with great fervor, seeing it as a chance to greatly further his military career. His induction into the Cossacks brought him to the capital of Imperial Russia in April 1914, training in the arts of military etiquette and horsemanship, earning the Cossack uniform of a dark coat and a feathered grey fur ushanka. He also was given his ceremonial sword, which was given to him at a lavish banquet at which Petr Sokolov and the other Cossack inductees were allowed to shake hands with Czar Nicholas himself.
In the august of 1914 Germany mobilized its armed forces and thrust into western Russia, the Czar forced to mobilize Russia’s own armies and counterattack. Petr, however, was ordered to stay in Moscow and be part of the Cossack guard, goose-stepping in the square to keep up the commoner’s morale and standing in front of the Imperial palace with shouldered rifles and stiff the stiff gait of a sentry. Petr slowly watched the Empire crumble from the strenuous activity of wartime, political officials easily corrupted, and the Czar himself become useless against the growing debt that threatened to flood Russia’s economy. By 1916 Petr had become greatly skeptical that the Czardom would last any longer in modern society, secretly sympathizing with the growing Bolshevik presence. Some of the Cossacks also felt this way, but most of them remained loyal to the White faction.
When the Bolsheviks organized into a functioning force in 1917 Petr left the Cossacks and rallied behind Socialism, joining the riots in Moscow. He moved into one of the Bolshevik party encampments outside of capital, for if he could not go to the White-controlled Cossack barracks. At one of the fires that burned against the unforgiving February winter he met Thekla, a ginger-haired Socialist woman who was in Moscow rallying with her brother. Petr and Thekla soon embarked on a passionate, fast-burning romance that ended with her impregnation in May of 1917. The young, politically active couple supported Bolshevik cause continually, the prospect of equal wages and a single class wondrous in Petr’s mind. They followed Vladimir Lenin with near-fanatical fervor, the pregnant woman and her ex-Cossack partner continually fighting for their beliefs.
But the October Revolution, bringing their favorite candidate Lenin to power, brought great change to the couple’s life. The Bolsheviks now had a massive handhold in Western Russia, slowly chiseling the White movement from the face of the motherland. Petr and Thekla were delighted to have their party in command of the nation, joining the cheering crowds and rejoicing in the writhing crowds before Lenin as he declared a new era for the Motherland. But, for better or for worse, the couple decided that turbulent and dangerous Moscow, which was just beginning to kick off the Russian Civil War, was no place to give birth to a child. Petr and Thekla traveled by rail to Soviet-controlled Petrograd before journeying to Petr’s birthplace of Kichany, preparing to request his disgruntled father to let the couple occupy the manor until he and Thekla had been properly wed and could find a home of their own.
When they arrived at Kichany they found the heavy Bolshevik presence had reformed the town, dissolving the aristocratic foundation and turning it into a powerhouse for the war effort. The lumber mill that the Sokolov family had owned and operated had been repossessed by the state, churning out wood that the Bolsheviks paid well for, the millers earning a universal salary under the watchful eye of a commissar issued to oversee the productions. Petr later found the manor vacant and recovered a record that Fyodor had boarded a passenger ship to America, fleeing the class-equaling Communism and hoping to rebuild his factory in the Capitalist paradise of the United States. Petr and Thekla occupied the echoing hallways of the Sokolov house, inheriting all of the fine velvet furniture and oak furnishing to themselves. The couple wed in a small forest clearing by an ancient Sweboz pagan stone garden that had served the townspeople as a ritual chapel for centuries, a non-religious Communist official reading their vows. Only close friends witnessed the kiss that bound child-swollen Thekla and the Cossack Petr together as Sokolovs.
It was only three weeks after the ceremony that their first child was born. Thekla began to endure labor pains two days beforehand and Petr had called a pair of midwives to the manor, fretting for the wellbeing of his beloved spouse. The midwives drew the curtains of the master bedroom and lay Thekla upon the red-canopied bed, hoping to bring upon nativity quickly and have the infant out in a handful of hours, but fate did not agree. The soon-to-be mother continuous muscle contractions causing great pain and discomfort, but the baby ceased to move from the womb. The midwives tried various remedies including two pots of water, one boiling and another iced, evaporate into the room. One of the obstetricians gathered flowers and herbs from the late summer forest to both feed to the woman and leave them in the room for their aroma, hoping that one of the two would stimulate childbirth. The midwives were forced to sleep in the manor, taking shifts in case the baby decided to emerge in the wee hours of the morning.
On the morning of the second day Petr awoke to the sound of his wife’s moans. He had slept in the sitting room due to the master bedroom being occupied, washing in the laundry room due to the bathroom’s entrance also being inaccessible. Petr attempted to read in the library but soon found that impossible, for Thekla’s increasing screams seemed to bore into his mind. He instead exited the manor and took care of the animals, stumbling upon the grisly remains of a pair of chickens murdered by a fox during the previous night. As he was discarding of their carcasses a midwife informed him that his son had finally been delivered and that Thekla was awaiting him in the master bedroom. Their son was in his mother’s embrace, completely still but breathing normally. They named him Apostolis after his mother’s brother, hovering around him like first-time parents do. He was oddly quiet, staying still and sucking on a pacifier while laying in the silk-lined crib in the crèche, suckling silently and playing without a sound.
In 1919, the second year of Apostolis’s birth, Petr was offered a state-issued job of overseeing the sawmill. The man agreed, delighted with the steady equal-wage pay. The couple’s infant son was enrolled into a public day-nursery in Kichany while his father worked and his mother tended to the manor, growing fond of the caretakers that doted on him the day. The nursery was built alongside the railroad tracks, locomotives vibrating the building and waking the infants when they passed. Thekla was impregnated again in January of 1919 and gave birth to twin girls, Svetlana and Leva, both small and dark haired with frail physiques and a passion for laughing from the belly. They too were enrolled in the nursery, the caretakers allowing the toddler Apostolis to interact with his sisters. They lived a happy life, the picture of a self-respecting family thriving of the fertile soil of Communism.
Only four months after birth Leva was found in the nursery frighteningly still in her cradle, Svetlana and Apostolis sleeping quietly in the adjacent cribs. She was pronounced dead by Kichany’s local doctor, a victim of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. The Sokolovs were devastated to have one of their own killed so suddenly, the sorrow never fully parting from their heart. The two children were too young to understand the concept of death, simply standing in their somber black garb as their sibling was lowered into the small family cemetery, and then simply gone. Petr accepted Leva’s death as a random act of natural selection that should be grieved but not dwelled on, preferring to deal with the present. Thekla, however, believed her daughter’s death to be some fault of the nursery. Surely the mold that was growing on the wall near the crib had infiltrated her lungs or the sheets tucked too tight had suffocated her. She insisted on keeping the children home for the remainder of their infant years, only her caring for the most precious commodity in her life.
As soon as Apostolis and Svetlana approached the ripe age of four their mother ceased to dress them in their lacy infant bedclothes and hustled them toward maturity. Apostolis began to wear miniature white linen shirts and earth-colored trousers and jackets, leather caps covering his flaxen hair and shading his alarmingly periwinkle eyes as he roamed around the grounds of the manor, playing with his tin soldiers and pighide balls while his sister was read picture books and taught how to boil water for tea. Their residence was built farther into the tranquil forest than most of Kichany’s other homes, the four mile walk into the town’s center rarely traveled by anyone except their father, his state-issued automobile carving deep tracks into the spongy mud of the drive.
Apostolis first educated at six years of age, his father driving him to the schoolhouse on his way to the mill. The boy felt dreadfully out of place in his chrome grey jacket and knickers, his leather satchel full of books and writing utensils all too heavy when slung over his bony shoulder. Fortunately he soon grew to enjoy school, growing accustomed to memorizing arithmetic and playing football with the other boys in the recess yard. His teachers referred to him as intelligent but not exceptional, the Sokolov child a great knower of odd facts while lacking in more conventional subjects. He particularly liked science, enjoying lessons about leaves and tropisms and such. He enjoyed hiking with his family and friends in the Nordic woodlands around Kichany, discovering little creatures that his companions and he would prod with sticks and lock in jars. He grew more adventurous as he grew older, taking a great interest in swimming and diving in the pool at the gymnasium.
When Apostolis reached the age of ten he joined the Vsesoyuznaya pionerskaya organizatsiya, or ‘Young Pioneers of the Soviet Union’, a scouting organization for secondary school members. He began as a junior pioneer, an underling to the leather-hard teenage unit leaders. The Kichany regiment routinely hiked, fished, and swam in the lakes and woodlands around the tiny Russian village. Sokolov was one of the star pioneers, a perfect Communist child; tough, wiry, and full of guile. He had a logical answer for every problem Mother Nature threw at him, his solutions coming straight from the Young Pioneers handbook. As he approached thirteen and fourteen he was highly respected by the Young Pioneer’s community, achieving the supreme physical fitness medal and was a junior unit leader. At fifteen he earned the Red Diving and Swimming award for journeying to Shisselburg and swimming across the swift waters of the Neva, touching the opposite bank, and swimming back. After his swimming achievement he was promoted to unit leader for Kichany, proudly leading the youth of Russia’s tomorrow for the final year of his Pioneer service.
At sixteen Apostolis joined the Komsomol, aiding in government projects in Kichany. He, with his fellow Komsomol members, erected a new postal office in his hometown and his name and those of his comrades were carved into the keystone of the building. He proudly wore the badges on his white-and-blue uniform, eagerly waiting the time where he could join the military and fully serve the U.S.S.R. He served in the Komsomol until graduation from high school, deciding to enlist in the Red Army. He had briefly flirted with the idea of joining the Red Airforce, but the idea of flying was alien and rather frightening to him. He was sent to basic training in Leningrad in December of 1940, the reality of being a raw recruit weighing on his shoulders. Apostolis and his fellow conscripts were repeatedly humiliated by their commanding officers, forced on long marches in full parade dress through the streets, and fed only black bread and thin beet stew. He realized that in the Red Army you either had to get tough and become as hard as the NCO’s that trained them or drop into the ranks of the Ryadovi, surviving on pittance and being the lowest of the low. Apostolis graduated basic training and was accepted into an officer’s academy in St. Petersburg, exiting with the rank of Mladshii Leitenant. He was then forced to decide between the infantry, artillery, and armored corps. He chose the armored corps partly because of his size. He was rather small and wiry, and the armored corps preferred petite men for their tanks. He was soon added to a unit of tanks and set on guard on the western border of the Soviet Union.
Military Rank: Starshii Leitenant or Kapitan
Writing Sample:
T-26
Kapitan Sokolov cursed as mud splattered onto his binoculars’ lenses for the second time since he came out of the hatch. The damned German artillery was woefully inaccurate, and although the Heer rangefinders knew the general direction the Soviet tanks were most of the shells were lost in the mud that sucked at the T-26’s treads. Three other tanks were concealed on the ridge, splattered with grime churned from the German shells. The underbrush was rather good cover, shells cracking spindly oak bows instead of the thin armor of the archaic T-26. They were to wait in the on the ridgeline until infantry support came through and was able to attack the German guns. The tanks were then supposed to support the Strelkovy platoon as it spearheaded into the valley, hopefully eliminating the dug-in artillery.
Apostolis wiped the glass of his worn binoculars with the smooth fire-retardant blue of his tanker jumpsuit, the garment pulled over his coarse mustard-colored infantry tunic. “Coming down, Paplov.” He warned the squat, bulky gunner, for Paplov’s station was directly below the hatch. The gunner grunted in response. Sokolov bent down into the tank, pulling the hatch shut behind him and latching it shut. “We’ve got nothing. Shells coming in steadily but just as inaccurate as ever. No sign of the Strelkovy either.” Apostolis muttered, throwing himself into the leather-bound commander’s seat. Ryadovi Gorky, the mouse-faced 19-year-old driver, spoke up. “When do you think the infantry will arrive? I’m tired of waiting here. And fucking hungry.” Kapitan Sokolov sighed, unfolding a map from his jumpsuit’s pocket and a compass from the ledge next to his commander’s seat. “No telling, comrade Gorky. We have no reports from aerial surveillance.” He said, motioning to the radio in the back of the tank. “Until we do, we have no indication of the infantry’s position. You should sit tight and mind the wheel. Some of these shells might get too close for comfort and relocating would be a smart move.” Gorky turned his back and drummed his palms on the steering wheel.
About five minutes later a panicked scream made Sokolov’s crew jump. Just seconds after the cry a plink reverberated throughout the chassis, the telltale sign of a small arms projectile making contact with the armored plating. Gorky cursed, leaning up on the wheel to stare out of his small viewport. Paplov started to rotate the turret, loading one of the big shells into the main gun. “Hold your fire!” Sokolov shouted, maneuvering the small knobs on the radio. A message was coming through on the command frequency. Sokolov reached it, the voice of their unit Commissar coming through. “German infantry coming up on both flanks! Anti-tank rifles! Open fire, but hold your ground! The Strelkovy must reach you!” Apostolis cursed before yelling to Paplov. “Open fire! Machine gun! Quickly!” Gorky threw his weight at the wheel, trying to get the T-26 into a better position. Apostolis ran to the machine gun port, for it was the commander’s duty to man the anti-infantry weapon.
Sokolov had just reached the small machine gun when the anti-tank round pierced the armored exterior. It entered the left side, making the crew’s ears ring as it passed through. It whizzed through the interior with a dazzle of light, disemboweling Gorky as it exited the right side. The nineteen-year-old’s entrails were strewn across the walls, his lifeless and battered body laying in a heap under the steering wheel. Apostolis and Paplov had both been showered in blood, soaking through their blue jumpsuits and staining their mustard tunics. “Shit, shit, shit! The fuel is on fire! Shit!” The gunner yelled, pointing to a flaming ball by the exit hole. Apostolis shouted a warning and dragged Paplov up and towards the hatch, unlatching it as they went. Paplov ripped the PPSH-41 off the tank’s hull before they left the burning interior, the weapon used for close combat in case of bailing out. They exited into a hail of German machine gun bullets, taking cover behind the tanks treads and firing back, Paplov with his PPSH and Apostolis with his Tokarev pistol.
“What shall wit do, comrade Kapitan?” Paplov asked Sokolov, screaming over the din of battle. Apostolis fired the last round of his clip, hitting a German soldier in the jugular vein. “We make for those trees over there. We will be safe until the Strelkovy comes.” Paplov nodded, eager to leave the dangerous cover of the burning tank. Apostolis slammed another magazine into his pistol and chambered a round by pulling back the slide. “On the count of three.” He said to Paplov. “One…Two…Three!” They both leaped out of cover, firing in a torrent to cover themselves. They made it to the copse of trees safely, skidding behind the large humps of roots as bullets kicked up dirt in front of them. Paplov stood up to fire a burst upon the enemy, but the Germans were too quick. A bullet smashed into the brawny Russian’s chest, sending him sprawling onto his back. Apostolis bent over his friend, wiping the blood from Paplov’s chin with his sleeve. “Comrade? Comrade Paplov?” Sokolov asked, panicked. The gunner’s eyes were glassy. What was he to do now?
[Thank you for looking at this. If it is not enough to make Kapitan, or at least Starshii Leitenant, please let me rework it. I really want the rank. Thanks.]
