Pavel Poustovoitov

Dr. Pavel Semyonovich Poustovoitov (b. 14 May 1960, Berezniki, USSR) is a Uralican scholar, actor, and activist. His best-known work is the 2009 Uralican film Through Hellfire and Brimstone, a psychological/religious thriller he wrote and starred in.

Biography
Born in Berezniki, Pavel was never a particularly happy child. His father was an alcoholic and would often beat his mother, even ending up in jail a few times. He often acted up in school. He did enjoy certain parts of schooling, such as dancing and performing, but in most things he was exceedingly average.

He too bore the brunt of his father's wrath, and before he was arrested and sentenced to 12 years' prison time for assault in 1975, said father would both hospitalise his mother and fracture his cheekbone.

With his father out of the picture, his marks improved, if only slightly. But his big break came in 1977 when he was "discovered" by a vacationing member of the Bol'shoy Ballet, who offered to take him to Leningrad for proper dance training. His mother obliged on the condition that she could come with him.

So Pavel ended up finishing his high school in Leningrad, after which he auditioned for the Leningrad Institute of Culture in two departments - acting and theatrical performance - and he was accepted by both, so he decided, instead of choosing one over the other, to do a double major. It took him an extra year to complete, but in the fall of 1983, after he finished his degree, he went on tour with the Bol'shoy Ballet and became an instant fan favourite. He married one of his fellow dancers in 1985, and they had their first child, Fedor, when on vacation in early 1987. She spent her maternity leave in Pavel's original hometown of Berezniki at his request, as he planned to return there eventually, and also, it was just up the road from Solikamsk, where Fedor was born.

He would take a sabbatical in 1990, after the birth of Vera in Rostov-na-Donu, to work on a Master's Degree in Acting at the Kiev National University of Theatre, Film and Television, but while he studied there, the Soviet Union fell apart, so he felt he had to return to Russia for a while to make sure he kept his Russian citizenship. This delay extended his sabbatical by a full year, and he wouldn't finish until late 1993.

With the borders now fully open and the Ballet touring worldwide, Pavel decided to use the opportunity to scout out schools with doctoral programs in theatrical acting. In 1995, he finally settled for the California Institute of the Arts, since he wanted to learn English. He retired from the Ballet and set about this endeavour, living in Valencia (which would later become part of Santa Clarita) while he did so. He lived with a translator for a year, then was able to communicate reasonably well in English and half-ways-decently in Spanish after this, although he called his translator occasionally for help with Spanish. He completed his degree in 1999 and moved back to Russia.

It was also around this time that he was invited back to North America to act. The family remained in Berezniki while he went to Vancouver to film some medium-budget art-house films. Although not widely popular, his films got great critical ratings, which only increased his marketability.

Unfortunately for the West, after September 11, 2001, he refused to leave Europe to act ever again, instead staying within Europe. He made four films in the next four years, but had to go into hiding when Cataclysm reared its ugly head at the end of 2005.

Post-Cataclysm, it didn't take long for Poustovoitov to find work again, this time in England. It was here that he starred in his first commercially successful film up to that point, the romance Time Well Spent. Originally intended to have a sex scene, this was written out at Pavel's insistence on account of his beliefs - he had converted to Russian Orthodox in 1993. The producer would later admit that this actually added to the appeal of the film - that it was about true love and not some torrid love affair. It earned him two Oscar nominations and won him several film awards at home and in England.

In a 2007 interview, he also expressed pride in his 20-year-old son Fedor, who had been making waves in the European football (soccer) scene as a member of Spartak Moskva. However, when Fedor was unceremoniously dumped by Spartak for criticising the club for not doing anything to protest Uralic Purges, he stepped up to support his son financially as best he could. (He later signed a 1-year contract with Tottenham Hotspur after a trial, where he was much appreciated by the fans.)

In 2008, Berezniki was annexed by Uralica, a move welcomed by Poustovoitov, who, while not a staunch Uralicist, was "a bit irked" by the fact that "people who call themselves Christian could be capable of such nonsense" in reference to the Russian extremists, who labelled themselves Orthodox. Not long after the annexation, he was approached by Ovdey Shlomov, to ask if he would be willing to teach acting and/or theatre at a university. He obliged, and would later be named Uralikan Yliopisto's first, and to date only, Chair of the School of Acting. This meant another move, but only for Pavel and his wife Anastasiya. Fedor, after finishing his year with Spurs, returned to Uralica, and after claiming his Uralican passport, he signed a five-year-deal with Zavod Ural Solikamsk with the hopes that a professional league would start up there. Naturally, it did. As for Vera, who was 18 at the time, she had just graduated from high school and had decided to move to Perm' to help the rebuilding process.

Now living in Syktyvkar, Pavel teaches Acting and Theatre classes year-round, while his wife has begun acting herself. Pavel also acts, and his top film to date was the early 2010 Uralican flick Through Hellfire and Brimstone (which he also wrote the screenplay for), where he portrayed Gennady Malushov, a bitter middle-aged cynic who gets dragged into supernatural warfare after his nephew (portrayed by action star Pentti Korhonen) escapes a horde of malignant demons.

Trivia

 * Pavel speaks Russian, English, Finnish, Spanish, and French fluently. He also knows some Komi.
 * Pavel, being an actor and screenplay writer, has a reputable taste for classical music, and reportedly will listen to anything "that is not completely atonal" in the genre. His favourite composer is Gustav Holst.
 * His favourite non-Biblical authors include Tolstoy, Hemingway, Nabokov, and Nikolay Kosov.
 * Both he and his wife are die-hard Zavod Ural Solikamsk supporters, due in large part to their nationally-famous son Fedor playing there.