Yevgeny Kolpakov

Dr. Matvey Ruslanovich Kolpakov (b. 22 April 1959 in Ruzayevka (now Orozai), USSR) is a Uralican Mari political theorist, politician, and activist, one of the founding fathers of Uralica, one of twenty Tribal Council members that have never failed to be voted in, and the patriarch of one of Uralica's most famous families. He also chairs the Department of Political Science at Uralikan Yliopisto, and is de facto Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences.

Biography
Born to a Mari factory worker named Ruslan and a Russian bureaucrat named Ivanka, Matvey's childhood and adolescence were fairly low-key, save for the fact that his marks were good enough for full scholarship at the prestigious Leningrad State University (as it was known then). He got a reputation as something of a daydreamer when he was young, and this developed into a certain philosophical mindset that would determine much of his life. He did a double-major in Political Science and Philosophy, but the latter would lead him into some "digging" which led him to find books on philosophies outside the Soviet world.

During his time at LSU, he met his future wife, Maria Diakonova, a full-blooded Mari from Yoshkar-Ola, who majored in Philosophy. He was drawn to her striking looks and caring character, while she admired his intelligence and insight, and she admitted later that she thought he was handsome.

They had a fairly nondescript wedding at home in Mari El in February of 1982, the year after they both graduated. So well-known was Matvey that certain high-ranking Soviets insisted on invitation, but these were, surprisingly, declined. There was a reason for this, as both husband and wife had secretly converted to Orthodox Christianity, a major taboo in Communist Russia. Because of his "digging," Matvey had discovered an old Russian Bible and read it from cover to cover - only Maria knew of it, and she too would read it alongside him.

Leonid Brezhnev's death was literally one day before the birth of their eldest child, Martina Yevgeniyevna Kolpakova, in Yoshkar-Ola. It wasn't until after the birth of their second child, Mikhail Yevgeniyevich Kolpakov, in May of 1984, that Yevgeny decided to go back to school again, and by that time, Soviet politics seemed to be in a funk, so he avoided the major centres and instead went to the University of Tartu in the Estonian SSR, where he did a Master of Arts degree in Comparative Politics. His insights wowed his professors, especially when he actually did an objective comparison of Soviet communism, other forms of communism, and capitalism, explaining the pros and cons of all three so well that some worried he was a threat to the regime.

Tired of the "backstabbing" he endured while in Tartu, the moment Gorbachev opened the borders for Soviet students to go abroad, he was gone. Because of his Uralic heritage, he went to Finland, specifically the University of Helsinki, to finish his degree. The fact that Meadow Mari was his mother tongue, and what he had learned of Estonian in Tartu, made learning Finnish that much easier. It made him take an extra six months to complete his Master's, but he graduated at the end of 1986, having finished coursework during the summer. The following June, his third child and second son, Matvey (who would later go on to become quite famous in his own right) was born.

Having heard about his objectivism and insights, a great many schools from around the world with solid political science programs sent him offers of grants if he chose to get his doctorate at their school. Desiring a change of scenery, he opted for Cambridge, although he had to spend an extra year just to get his English up to an appropriate level. The research he did was so extensive that he didn't graduate until 1990 - by then, he had sired another daughter, Kseniya, who was the only Kolpakov not born in Russia, having been born at an airline stopover point in Hamburg, Germany. Maria had to postpone the second half of her flight for an entire month, which took a lot of manoeuvring on Yevgeny's part. This was in October of 1989.

Unlike most Uralicans, Matvey can claim he had a hand in stifling the coup in the Soviet Union, close to its end. Upon receiving his DPhil, he had been invited to become a professor at Moscow State University, so the whole family moved to Voskresensk, a suburb of Moscow.