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This article is currently under construction. Information may change as the article is updated. |
| General Kirill Zholtok KMV BEng | |
Vice Chief-of-Staff, Uralican Army
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| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 22 December 2008 | |
| Serving with | Gen. Akhmetkhan Gubaidulin (since 1 June 2010) |
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Member of Uralical Tribal Council
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| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 1 June 2008 | |
| Born | 13 June 1949 Daugavpils, Soviet Union
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| Spouse | Carmen Zholtoka |
| Children | Augusts Zholtok, Rita Toivonen (née Zholtoka), Dasha Rybina (née Zholtoka), Mihails Zholtok |
| Alma mater | an unspecified military college/Uralikan Yliopisto. |
| Religion | Uralican Evangelical Baptist Christian |
General Kirill Zholtok (Latvian name Kirils Žoltoks, born 13 June 1949 in Daugavpils, Latvian SSR, Soviet Union) is a Uralican military leader, politician, and general authority figure. He is one of roughly one thousand Latvian-speakers in Uralica, and although he has some Livonian ancestry "going way back" (his words), he is better recognised as one of the foremost political figures in the Russian Tribe. He is also joint vice-chief of the Uralican Army, the first-ever Kunnianmitali winner, and the first and only commanding officer of the Mindphaser Division.
Biography[]
Born to a Latvian-Russian father and a Russian mother, Kirill could best be described as a Soviet army brat, as his father was a low-ranking officer in the Red Army. His mother tongue was Latvian, but he also had a command of the Russian language by the time he was in grade school, speaking to his father in the former and his mother in the latter.
He didn't have a very easy childhood, and some of this was of his own doing. Early on in life, he showed violent tendencies and a certain defiance towards authority, perhaps due to his father's alcoholism and his mother's seeming apathy. He developed a fierce temper and fell in with a bad crowd, eventually ending up in jail for assault no less than three times. He was finally put in boot camp when he turned twenty and remained there until he had been sorted out, having been threatened several times with being sent to the gulags in northeastern European Russia. After boot camp, he became interested in being a soldier after having seen the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. His instructors at boot camp had noticed this and sent him to a secret military camp in central Siberia (the exact location of which he still hasn't figured out, since the camp was apparently destroyed during the Cataclysm). He was trained to fight the "American oppressor" there, and he picked the tricks of the military trade up so quickly that his instructors had him put in officer training.
He would finally return to regular Daugavpils, a changed man, in 1976. Now a lieutenant, he would only be around long enough to say goodbye to his struggling family - his father's alcoholism had taken its toll on his liver, and he would die within three months of Kirill leaving. That said, he would meet someone in Moscow who would take away some of his pain - a young French diplomat named Carmen Robert. It seemed to be love at first sight, although the romance would be cut short when Carmen was forcibly recalled to France when one of her male colleagues suspected she would defect because of the attention Kirill was showing her. Furious, Kirill was tempted to threaten said individual, but realised doing so would create an international incident that Russia surely didn't need.
Kirill had a brush with death as a 31-year-old in Afghanistan in 1980, when a mujahid shot into his building, killing his CO instead of him. Having an AK-47 on him at the time, he opened fire on a group of Afghan mujahidin that were standing off to the distance of the complex, but did not take down the man responsible. After four years in Afghanistan, he was recalled upon the death of Yuri Andropov in 1984. The whole time he was there, he could not stop thinking about Carmen.
They would meet again the following year after Chernenko died, in Moscow. Now a captain, Zholtok was kept in Moscow as part of a home-based defence force, and when he saw Carmen, he was overjoyed. The two began a rather torrid affair, which came to a head in 1987 when he finally asked her to marry him, saying that he would even move to France if need be. She would take two months to think about it, but she finally accepted after consulting with her friends about it. He was eight years her senior, but the feelings were definitely mutual. They were married in 1988, and Kirill resigned from the army to move to France with her. Over the time the two were dating, she had taught him enough French that he was able to function well.
Adjusting to culture in France was quite a bit more difficult, though. Not used to some of the over-the-top luxuries of the nation, Kirill yearned for his homeland - not so much Moscow, but Daugavpils, his home city. When their first child (a son) was born in 1990, she let him give the child a Latvian name, and he gave this son the name Augusts because it had an equivalent in French.
Back home, the Soviet Union was imploding, and eventually Latvia declared its independence (1990) although it would be another year before said independence was recognised. Still, Carmen suggested that they move to Latvia, and in the spring of 1991, they did exactly that, with Kirill immediately being offered a job in the Latvian Army as a captain, which was his old rank in the Soviet system.
By the birth of his twin daughters, Rita and Dasha, in early 1993, he was comfortably settled into the Army, and with the fundamental lack of drama surrounding Latvia in the next decade, he had a cushy job with good guaranteed pay. Carmen, who had since finished a BA, would teach French and Social Studies at a local high school. Their youngest, Mikhail, was born in 1996.
But not all was well in the household. A bored Carmen would often go out partying with friends, and soon, there were allegations of infidelity coming into the mix. She would often come home late, and considerably drunk. The marriage came to the brink of divorce by mid-2005.
That's when the Cataclysm occurred. Riga and Moscow were both hit heavily, taking out the central governments of those two nations, and because of his French passport and the EU citizenship coming with it, Kirill took the children to the countryside of central Germany for their own safety, also inviting Carmen to come alongside. Realising that her very life was in the balance, she agreed and followed along. But war after war would force them to practically become nomadic, and after several moves and the dissolution of the EU on 1 January 2006, they finally ended up deep inside Russia, near the city of Togliatti. It was here that, in July 2006, the New Polar Order saw potential in the captain who appeared to want to do anything for his family and his people. As they had established order in Latvia, he and his family were sent back there.
Polar regulations forbade drunkenness of any teacher, so the short-term problem was terminated. However, Carmen's propensity towards flirting hadn't subsided, so Kirill said flat-out that marital counselling would be the only way to save the marriage. She refused, and they separated, remaining thus for two years. (It wouldn't be until after her conversion to Christianity in mid-2008 in Avignon that she would return to her family.) She tried to take the children with her, however 16-year-old Augusts refused to go with her, knowing that she would regress into her old partying ways. When asked how he could make such a brazen accusation, the words "total depravity" came out of his mouth. It turned out Augusts had been spending his Sundays at church instead of playing football like he had said. This amazed his atheist parents immensely. Augusts then said, "You come home late at night and you can barely walk or speak from being so drunk, you are harsh to us all, and you expect me to want to go with you? I'd rather leave home." Augusts therefore did not go with his mother, instead remaining with his disheartened father. Unable to sway the eldest, she decided to go off on her own.
Kirill sank into depression, but his son kept him away from any alcohol, and finally told him what had been keeping him in decent spirits in spite of constant wars and other depressant events - Jesus Christ. Still not convinced, his work ethic began to drop off, and he was demoted to sub-lieutenant by the time Great War III came around.
But something during that war made him snap. When fighting in Russia in late April, he noticed civilians being forced from their homes in Vyborg as he was advancing with a Latvian unit into the city. He asked his Latvians to both stop them from doing this and ask why they were doing so. One master corporal reported back, saying it was "because they were Uralics." He came back from that assignment stunned. After taking a week's stress leave to ponder this, his backlash stunned both sides. He would go public making a statement demanding the complete removal of all Russian non-citizens from "Latvian-majority lands" until a stop was put to the extremist violence against Uralics. When asked his reasoning, he had this to say: "When I was a youth, I used to pick on the little guy. I look back to those days and weep from shame. But I cannot change the past. I'll be damned if I don't try to change the present, though. For too long, now, elements within the Russian people have oppressed the minorities, much like I did when I was young. That ends here, and that ends NOW."
His hardline stance cost him his post, which led to riots in Riga and Daugavpils and open protesting of the situation in other major Latvian centres. But he did also get the attention of a Finnish pastor named Matti Koppinen, who began a correspondence with Zholtok. It turns out his son had heard about the Uralicist Movement through his 'Evangelical church, and e-mailed Dr. Koppinen to talk about his family's story. The back-and-forth argument lasted for four months, and when he read Dr. Koppinen's last e-mail, he was hit hard by the reality of his own situation. As his son opened the door to his father's study, he saw his father sobbing. "What have I really become?" he asked his son. "Do I have a hope in hell?"
"No, but you have a hope elsewhere," his son responded.
The answer had a twofold meaning. With nothing left for him in Old Latvia, he left just before the outbreak of the Unjust War for Koppinen's home base in Syktyvkar, with his children in tow. When he got there, he was awestruck by how receiving the people were of him. He met Koppinen face-to-face for the first time on 1 September of that year, and with him, a couple other people who would change his life - Jarkko Salomäki, Vaido Kuik, Ovdey Shlomov, and Vlasi Malenkov.
By that time, the Uralic Purges had long since ended, but Uralics were still being persecuted, even if not being driven from their homes. Salomäki, not quite acclimatised to the area but already familiar with the suffering of his people, said that if the Uralic people are ever to be safe, they will need strong military protection. He asked Zholtok if he could help, and Zholtok said he had lost his instincts. It only took one sentence to change his mind.
"I don't buy that for a second... Captain Zholtok, who wanted to run the Russians out of Latvia for their extremists being jerks."
He spent the night pondering what Jarkko had said, then came back the next day and asked, "Where do we start?"
"At church," Jarkko answered.
The following day, Dr. Koppinen preached a sermon that hit Kirill on a personal level. He had heard enough. He was ready to commit himself to the Lord. He was baptised alongside his now 17-year-old son two weeks later.
He then set to work on gathering a militia for the Movement, which would later become the beginnings of the Uralican Army. A general, Ruslan Grishkin, worked with him to devise defensive strategies for Uralicists in the area, and by the time of Jarkko Salomäki's swearing-in as president of the Uralicist Movement, they had a full-scale armed force on their hands - under the banner of the Uralic Liberation Front, which at first was only a small militia - and even managed to secure the possession of a few tanks. (These would never end up being used before the foundation of Uralica.)
Because of his zero-tolerance stance against racial/ethnic extremism, many Russian Uralicists looked to Zholtok as a hero of sorts. This would be cemented by his decision-making in Syktyvkar in early March. The Syktyvkar Riots were spawned by a group of roughly four thousand Russian ethnic extremists rushed the city on 2 March 2008, looking to put an end to resistance. They were met by around five times that number of a combination of Komi nationalists, Russian Uralicists, and other Uralicists including Jarkko Salomäki.
The riots would last for roughly an hour, resulting in almost the entire riot population being at least wounded, and 229 people - 139 extremists and 90 Uralicists - dying. But what ended it was a well-executed, Zholtok-planned encirclement of the "invaders" by ULF members armed with assault rifles. What the extremists didn't know was that the bullets in said rifles were made of rubber. But any of them that were still well enough to flee fled. Those that did not surrendered and were thrown in jail en-masse - these numbered roughly seven hundred.
Zholtok wished a peaceful resolution to the whole mess and therefore was delighted when the Three-Day Revolution started. Ten days after the end of the Revolution, he was the second Russian, after Nikolay Shevchuk, to sign the Uralican Constitution.
But Zholtok's contribution to Uralican sovereignty was only beginning. When Ionizer attacked Pazhga in 2008 after Uralica came to the aid of Jellyfishia against his nation Ionicion, Zholtok sprang to action preparing a quick retaliation, and in spite of his son's protest, he actually fought directly in the combat. The series of battles was an astounding success, leaving Ionicion's army in a shambles. It was, in fact, his actions that led to the creation of the Kunnianmitali, the highest honour that can be bestowed upon a Uralican for military or humanitarian causes. On 1 April 2008, he was declared the first recipient of the award, and promoted from Captain to Major.
Come May, when A Tale Of Two Ghosts was ongoing, his battlefield tactics again won the day, as Amerzica was devastated by the Uralican Army. It was around this time that devising of the elite division of the Uralican Army began. This would become the Mindphaser Division, and when Jarkko disappeared in September 2008, he left this division in the hands of Zholtok, who carried out his orders from the suspension of Uralica's constitution - Destroy Rebbilon, and defend the honour of any close friends of Uralica's. He had already been a Council member since June.
Upon reading the battle reports from the archives upon his return to politics around Christmastime of that year, Salomäki made him a major-general and put him in command of the Uralican Army, as General Grishkin had been killed in the War of the Coalition. He retained this position and continued to execute his usual tactical genius during the nation's wars.
But he also got another Christmas present he expected even less. His estranged wife, who had never filed for divorce, came to Syktyvkar on the 25th and asked where he could be found. It turned out she had converted to Christianity and wanted to reconcile. The reunion was tearful, and while her other children were skeptical, the moment Augusts saw his mother and how she carried herself, something inside him told him she had changed. The first thing Kirill and Carmen did was reaffirm their wedding vows publicly.
Kirill split 2009 and 2010 between military duty, Council sessions, and working on a Bachelor of Engineering degree at Uralikan Yliopisto, trying to fast-track himself as much as possible based on his previous military education. He finally attained his degree at the end of 2010, specialising in Electrical Engineering. Jarkko Salomäki joked, "now he can not only plan out what tank brigades are supposed to do, but he can also rig the tanks to make sure they don't break down!"
Trivia[]
- Now lives in Käkisalmi with Carmen and the kids, except for Augusts when not on active duty.
- Loves heavy metal music, especially Pelastus. Also likes Bane of the Machine and Enemy's Enemy.
- Is an avid follower of ice hockey. His son Augusts was in CSKA Kirov's reserve squad and was recently traded to Viipurin Blues. He also likes biathlon and disc-shooting.
- Speaks Latvian, Russian, English, French, Finnish, Karelian, and Hungarian fluently. He also knows some Komi, including military commands.
- His twin daughters, Rita and Dasha, graduate from high school in June 2011, but are already working for UralTek as storyboard writers for "girl-oriented but guy-friendly" video games.
- His youngest son, Mihails, is the youngest player in the U-17 roster of Käkisalmen Palloseura, a Nelonen football (soccer) club.
- The family's "Latvian names" are Kirils, Augusts, and Mihails Žoltoks, and Karmene, Rita, and Daša Žoltoke respectively.
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