Today we’ll look at the two most popular members of Sanya and Yura’s friend group, Tsar and Arthur, a.k.a. Anger Management. How did they meet? What’s their life like? And most importantly, why the hell are they so angsty?
Let’s start with the older one.
Arthur Sokolov
Joining the orphanage
Arthur was brought to the orphanage not long after being born. He never met any of his parents.
Growing up in a state-funded shelter meant developing a clear understanding of what kinds of behaviours will and won’t result in getting your shit kicked in. You can’t be too cocky, and you can’t be too weak. Follow the hierarchy, but don’t let your fear of elders show.
Arthur learned to navigate that little society well. He had earned respect among kids his own age and younger, and avoided being pushed around by the older teenagers too much. Less due to a noble heart and more because of being too proud to act like a doormat.
However, that didn't make him immune to peer pressure.
Correctional psychiatry
Business trip.
Many low-end orphanages across the former USSR had been essentially transformed into incubators for future gang members. “Businessmen”, either by bribe or threat, came to these institutions to recruit impressionable children into their organisations. One such uncle visited Arthur’s foster home.
For kids like him, the course of action was simple:
misbehave;
get sent to a mental institution for corrective treatment;
sneak as many bottles of trihexyphenidyl as you can into your bag during your stay;
leave the hospital as normal;
transfer the trihexyphenidyl to a gang representative and get your paycheck.
Under that business model, Arthur became a frequent guest at psychiatric wards. Having witnessed their indifference and medical callousness firsthand, he had developed a massive disdain for all kinds of mental health professionals.
It started even before joining the gang, of course – way before. It’s hard not to foster a vendetta when you get thrown to the looney bin for any misstep. At first he tried to honestly convince the doctors working there that he was fine, but he eventually realised it was futile: they were always in on the punishment.
Hustling continues
Arthur and Ivan at 15 and 17 respectively.
As Arthur grew older, he got more deeply involved with the gang’s activities alongside other kids. This meant participating in transfers, standing watch during certain deals, acting as a “treasure man” (i.e. hiding drugs in agreed upon places for clients to pick up), and so on. Fights were frequent.
He knew it was a slippery slope, but getting out was not an option – not an easy one, at least. This was the period during which he grew close to Ivan, who was commonly assigned to work with Arthur and other children from their institute.
They bonded on the basis of wanting to leave the business, though for different reasons: most of all, Ivan didn’t want to disappoint his grandma.
Getting out
First meeting with Yura.
The sudden disbandment of the gang was a relief to both Ivan and Arthur. A major member got caught and ratted almost everyone out, except for the dozens of orphans involved. So while Ivan went to turn himself in, Arthur got to walk free.
Before going, Ivan suggested Arthur replace him at his pop’s car repair salon. The boy seemed to have a knack for fixing things, and the two had developed a trusting relationship over their time working together.
While everything was looking fine, Arthur still wanted to destroy all traces of his activities - even those that couldn’t reasonably be tracked down to him. This led to him encountering Yura. Despite the very rocky start of their acquaintance, they went on to hang out together pretty regularly.
As of today, Arthur continues to do part-time at the workshop alongside Ivan. Both are committed to never getting back into the criminal business. Unless you count Sanya's Dynamo. Which you shouldn't. Having experienced what actual gangs are like, Arthur finds it hard not to look down at the girl's little roleplay.
Tsar
Joining the orphanage
Before coming to the orphanage, Tsar lived with his grandma. She died when he was 6. Since his parents had lost their parental rights due to alcoholism a couple years prior, there was only one place for him to go.
Tsar had a very hard time adjusting to the rigid hierarchy of the foster home. He was lucky enough to catch Arthur's attention and, in a sense, got scooped under his wing. The boy disliked relying on the older kid too much, but was too weak to stand on his own.
Gang involvement
How come mom lets you have two trips to the mental ward
Since Arthur got dragged into gang activities earlier than Tsar, the younger kid felt jealous. He, like most other children, fully bought into the romanticised idea of criminal life that was pushed by the uncles visiting the orphanage.
But as years went on, he saw the toll it had begun to take on Arthur. Tsar had taken a couple of correctional trips to mental wards as well, though he'd never participated in any illegal schemes. Those times were bad enough - he couldn't imagine going there again and again on purpose.
By the time Tsar would be old enough to get recruited into the business, Arthur forbade him from it. The kid still wanted to join to prove his worth, to earn his share, to show his guts. But his trust and respect for Arthur were stronger.
As much as he hated the idea, he stuck to the sidelines.
Contact with parents
Teatime with family.
Tsar’s parents reached out to him a couple years after he was transferred to the orphanage. He could only meet with them under supervision up until he was 13 years old. Afterwards they were allowed private meetings.
Today, he occasionally comes to visit them at their apartment. They still drink, but to Tsar, they just seem quiet and pitiful. He usually lends them the pocket money he receives from the orphanage. He knows they won't return it.
Anger Management
Ural models are known for their incredible durability and a baffling number of switches.
Tsar found a creative release in music and wrote songs to vent his frustrations. The orphanage had an old acoustic guitar that he learned to play, but it got completely broken when the boy was 13. After Arthur joined the workshop, he bought a black Ural from Ivan’s dad for cheap, upgraded its port, and gifted it to Tsar.
As it turned out, Ivan’s dad was hopping from one band to another in the 80s-90s, so he was happy to accommodate the kids' creative endeavours. He allowed them to use the spare garage space to practise and even supplied an incomplete drum set.
Tsar begged Arthur to back him up with drums. The latter begrudgingly agreed to learn them, but ended up really enjoying hitting barrels with sticks. Right now their band has a tiny local following, mostly in the face of Sanya Kazarina.
Some notes
I remember sitting down and reading about actual orphanage experiences in the post-soviet space – it was eye-opening, but also gave me a lot of material to work with, as heartless as that probably sounds. A lot of things simply clicked into place.
I didn't go into too much detail here, but FYI, I've downplayed the severity of certain situations. Trauma aside, I'd say both Tsar and Arthur got quite lucky in the end.
Better late than never: the loredump on Nikita and Kolya Reizner is finally here!
If you read my blog, you may already know some of this information. But it's always nice to have things organised.
So let's talk about them.
Childhood
Nikita and Kolya as kids.
Nikita and Kolya grew up in a small countryside town, with Nikita being older by three years. Their mother was a nurse, their father a factory worker.
Nikita was always positioned as an example for Kolya: he was the smarter one, the one that knew how to get along with people, the one that could stand up for himself. Kolya, on the other hand, was absent-minded, meek, and showed little interest in communicating with others.
This made him an easy target for bullying. Sometimes Nikita tried to ignore it, sometimes he stood up for him. Kolya would have preferred if he stuck to the former - having his brother defend and then scold him for not being assertive enough was more degrading than being picked on.
University
Kolya always enjoyed tinkering with electronics, so he went for an electrician degree. He wasn’t an exceptional student, but he enjoyed it significantly more than school. People didn’t bother him nearly as much.
Nikita enrolled in the biology department of a pedagogical university. He worked hard to get rid of his countryside accent and blend in with the more “educated” crowd.
He joined the admission committee after his first year, which is how he met Nadya: she was applying to the philology department of the university. Their relationship began shortly after.
Joining the stalker business
Kolya wanted an escape from society more than anything. And the anomalous Zone outside the city called to him, insistently so.
It was a time when the border was significantly less tight, when big stalker groups were still prevalent, but already on their way out. He met Victor Kazarin in one such group. The latter was still a young stalker, with only a couple of years behind his belt.
Still, under his guidance, Kolya’s abilities developed incredibly fast - he was a total natural. And it wasn't just his sharp talent, it was the way he walked the Zone, the way he loved it with all of his heart.
Experiencing a sense of freedom and levity isn't uncommon for stalkers. But to Kolya it went far beyond that. To him, it felt more real than anything else in the world, it was the only place that felt truly alive.
When Nikita found out about Kolya’s side gig, he was mortified. How could his slow, empty-headed brother survive in those conditions? How could he ever navigate that dark criminal business? He had to keep an eye on him.
After realising he cannot talk Kolya out of it, Nikita joined the same group. He never developed a strong sense for the Zone’s anomalies, but his biological knowledge paid off in a major way. Despite not having a medical degree, he knew more than enough to take on the rare doctor role.
After finding somewhere he finally felt complete, Kolya was once again treated as a clueless, incompetent child.
When the big group was showing signs of deterioration, Victor offered the brothers and several other stalkers to leave and form a smaller, more tightly-knit team. His connections from working in the militia (local police) created a solid basis for finding potential clients and covering things up.
Nikita's arrest
Maybe somebody snitched, maybe Kolya’s behaviour raised suspicion among his day job coworkers - whatever the reason, his house was searched and numerous artefacts were found.
But what would someone as soft and careless as him do in prison? Somebody as naive and weak could never last there, Nikita thought.
So he did what he had to: acted like the artefacts found in the younger brother’s apartment were his and then aggressively resisted arrest - just for good measure. Hell, maybe he would have managed to get away.
But he didn’t. As opposed to other stalkers having their scars bestowed by the Zone, the one on his neck was the result of a police confrontation. Nikita did not expect them to open fire when he ran. He was surprised he lived at all - the bullet grazed uncomfortably close to the carotid artery. He lucked out.
Kolya had never felt that insulted. He tried to come clean about being the real culprit. But Nikita knew how to be convincing; Kolya didn't. And Kolya felt no gratitude.
Breakup with Nadya
The breakup in the Mill.
Nikita was given 4 years in prison, but got parole after serving just 2. He immediately returned to helping injured stalkers.
Nadya waited for him through all his prison years. Considering how their relationship was going, some part of Nikita secretly hoped she wouldn't. She was a very self-conscious person, one that was infatuated with someone who seemed so much more confident than her. To the point where she felt like without his guidance, she’d be completely lost, and useless, and stupid.
Nikita both liked it and didn’t. Who wouldn’t enjoy a beautiful girl obsessing over them? But dealing with all of that baggage was inconvenient, it was tiring. Was it even worth it? Sometimes he wasn’t sure.
Still, things looked sweet on his release. Everyone, Kolya included, seemed glad to have him back.
Then, several months later, Nadya announced she was pregnant.
Nikita didn't want a child, especially not one that would have an almost guaranteed mutation. He proposed an abortion, but the woman refused. His reasoning that she usually took as gospel did not work. And no matter how much Nadya cried or pleaded with him, no matter how much she tried to convince him it would be okay, Nikita refused to take that burden upon himself.
There was no easy compromise. He left.
Kolya didn't have much of an opinion about Nadya. He didn't have much of an opinion about most people. And really, he didn't feel particularly bad for her.
However, hearing about what had happened made him repulsed in a quite satisfying way. The brother that always knew best, the brother that was so condescendingly self-sacrificing, had finally levelled himself with the rest of the earth's scum.
Months later Nikita would seek out the maternity hospital Nadya gave birth in. He wasn't registered as the father - he could not access any information about her. He couldn't contact her himself either.
Her acquaintances refused to talk with him. But eventually, one of them caved.
Nadya was pregnant with twins. Died while giving birth. The offspring was transferred directly to the institute. And that was it.
Raising Sergei and Sasha
It was a dumb death. A misstep. Kolya wasn’t sure what he felt when he saw Victor’s body turn to mush. It was so instant and so simple. Natural. Kolya’s breath halted, but just momentarily.
They had a plan prepared long in advance in case something like this would come to pass. Sending Sasha and Sergei to the orphanage was not an option, everyone had been well aware of the state of those systems. Instead, Victor Kazarin would live on, if only on paper.
They held a funeral of sorts: to onlookers, it was just an uncharacteristically big visit to the grave of Maria Kazarina. That was where Kolya informed Sergei about the plan. Him and Nikita would help raise the siblings until Sergei turned 18 and could become his sister’s legal guardian. Of course, they’d help him afterwards as well.
Kolya and Nikita raising Sergei and Sasha.
Sasha was fascinating to Kolya in a “child of the Zone” way, but he wasn’t very interested in her on a personal level. To her, he was the strange spaced out uncle that had cool electronics around the house and took pictures of her and Sergei. He also played the guitar like her dad used to.
Kolya and Sergei had a lot more to talk about. Kolya’s calm demeanour helped Sergei feel more at ease despite the terrible circumstances. Even with his ditzy nature, Kolya provided a certain sense of security and comfort. Kolya always considered Sergei a good kid, though he did believe his treatment of Sasha was too overbearing, especially considering his own relationship with Nikita.
The latter, on the other hand, was much closer to the girl. She liked to play with Nikita even before her father’s death, so the adoptive uncle role came to him naturally. Sasha grew very attached to him, especially since he was significantly easier to talk to than Sergei. Nikita, in turn, was happy to have Sasha around.
The Grinder incident
The group heading out to the mission in the Mill.
Beyond the Grinder lies the wishing room. At least, that’s what they say. It’s a rumour impossible to confirm or disprove. Can you really pass the whole stretch of the tunnel before your legs, your arms, your face, your whole body disintegrates? You don’t know. Do you want to find out? Probably not.
The natural human instinct for survival can only be superseded by total desperation – or apathy in equal measure. Did Kolya have enough of any? Neither Sergei, nor Olya knew. They didn’t know why he had to enter the Grinder, either. Was that what he had wanted from the start? When was “the start”? Maybe it didn’t matter.
They could not follow him. And that alone was good.
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