about.

Name and age;

name; Federal City of Saint Petersburg.

human name; Alexei Romanovovich Petrov; not Braginsky, as Peter the Great gave him his name.

age; Roughly around 300.

human age; 15-16.

birthdate; May 27, 1703.

Appearence; 

height; 5’5”; 165 cm.

weight; 92 lbs; 42 kg.

eyes; Dark purple eyes, almost always have bags under them from lack of sleep and frequent illness.

hair; Short, golden blonde. Has fairly thick hair.

skin; Very, very pale, from both lack of sunlight and frequent illness.

nails; Keeps his nails fairly short, since he’s paranoid of scratching himself with them.

all in all; structure; Tall, but rather ill looking. Has a look of irritation on his face most of the time. Very thin.

Personality;

around enemies; Very cold and cynical. He’s quite snarky and expresses this around those he isn’t fond of.

around friends; A complete fool around friends. His stoic facade crumbles, and he acts like a total child around friends, talking constantly of his favourite books even when his friends express no interest, telling really dumb jokes, etc.

around family; Whiny, and a bit clingy depending on the family member. Around Moscow, he’s spiteful and rude, and says he hates her, but it’s not true; after all, they are siblings.

do they resemble any book/anime/film character?; Yes. Dostoyevsky’s Hippolite Terentyev would be a nice comparision. 

described in a few words; Haughty, intelligent, but whiny.

Overview; Alexei is an intellectual. There’s no doubt about this.

He’s got some rather…odd ideas about life, and society. He believes himself to be a Napoleon, a great man who can do anything and get away with it. This is, perhaps, one of the main traits that causes him so much dislike from his neighbors and relatives. It stems from his constant reading of Dostoyevsky; he has essentially imagined himself to be Raskolnikov, or rather, a Raskolnikov wannabe.

His favourite writer is naturally Fyodor Dostoyevsky, although he  does enjoy Gogol, Tolstoy and Pushkin as well.

He’s got both epilepsy and hemophilia, which, needless to say, puts a bit of a damper on his health. But he’s still very reckless, since he’s only 15. He tends to take insults to heart, and is quite easily upset. He claims to be a gentleman, adding to the Raskolnikov-esque aura of his. ( He would indeed murder someone with an axe if he got the chance. )

He’s actually rather silver-tongued, and sort of manipulative when he wants to be. It’s one of his major flaws; yes, he does manipulate people if he thinks he has something to gain from them.

—wip!!—

History;

Saint Petersburg was founded on May 27, 1703, by Peter the Great. So many people died building the soon to be capital in the marshes that it earned Piter the nickname ‘The City Built on Bones’. The city was built under adverse weather and geographical conditions, too. Peter the Great was a sort of paternal figure to Alexei and his female counterpart, Tanya, however, he often urged him to try to be more masculine. Of course, Alexei, having hemophilia, couldn’t really indulge in activities that were considered ‘manly’ at the time, much to Peter’s disappointment, so he spent much of his time knitting, reading, drawing, etc. It kept him quiet and out of the way, so his founder didn’t really mind. Speaking of the hemophilia, as soon as Moscow found out, she quickly began poisoning his medicine. Of course…this didn’t really work. Peter the Great had taught him that Moscow was ‘an old fashioned woman with a medieval mind’ and so from the beginning, he did not like his older sister. Alexei shared Peter’s desire to modernize Russia, as well his dislike for beards, and so he’d take it into his own hands to cut off the beard of any man that was too long. Since Alexei’s city was such an important sea port, he felt a close connection with the water. In fact, Peter the Great, in an attempt to make his protege and capital more ‘manly’, he’d require the boy to go swimming in the Neva every morning for years. Peter the Great actually gave Alexei his last name- Petrov - meaning ‘of Peter’ in honour of himself.

After Peter the Great died, Ivan took on the role of paternal figure, spending much of his time with him. Since the boy was sick often, Ivan quite literally spend hours by his bedside, while an increasingly jealous Moscow would watch, clearly agitated. Ivan’s female counterpart, Aleksandra, however, was the prime caretaker of the boy. She was like his mother, he affectionately called her Mama and she called him Baby. Of course, when he got older, he didn’t exactly appreciate it, but…

So, for the following years, life was pretty easy for Alexei. Still plagued by hemorrhage and  general ill health, but otherwise, fine. He’d always idolized French culture, and spoke French much more than he did Russian. During the War of 1812, he lived with Ivan again. Moscow, who had burned eight times, moved back in with them, while Siberia lived in his own region. 

In the mid 1800s, Alexei had the Decembrist Revolt on his hands, and an epidemic of tuberculosis in which he himself suffered fits of coughing that persisted for years, even after the epidemic was over. Around this time period, he started to walk with a bit of a limp, a result of hemorrhage in the leg, and so he was given a cane- the same cane he has today. Despite the revolts and epidemics, Alexei enjoyed a bit of a  Renaissance. Many Russian authors, poets, composers and artists came from Saint Petersburg, making Alexei a very cultured person. By this time, he spoke four languages fluently- Russian, English, French and Dutch. For a while, due to the French influence, he went by Alexis, a more Western sounding version of Alexei.

In 1904, it was his idea to go to war with Japan. He was ambitious much like his founder, and wanted to see the empire that he had built up grow. This didn’t end well, to say the least. He decided to take control of the navy- he had a strong connection with the navy due to the ports in his town- and due to his lack of skills with military strategies and the like, he accidentally sunk a British ship instead of a Japanese one. Arthur was not pleased. To add to the stress, the heir to the Russian throne was born with the same disease he himself suffered from- hemophilia. Ironically enough, the heir’s name was also Alexei, and his mother, Alexandra. A year after the Russo-Japanese War and the birth of the heir, Alexei found himself dealing with the Bloody Sunday massacre. He was accidentally shot in the eye, worsening his vision, and so again, he was placed back under Ivan and Aleksandra’s care. It was then that he began to doubt that tsarism would be the best way to govern Russia. 

Despite the misfortunes in the past two years, Alexei enjoyed an elegant life of caviar, champagne, and ballroom dancing up until 1914. Unfortunately for him, he was dragged again into yet another war- World War I. On top of all of it, his people were starting to rebel, and Tsarina Alexandra’s dependence on the corrupt monk Rasputin to heal her son was becoming a problem. And a personal problem for him- he’d developed a crush on Grand Duchess Anastasia. He adored her teasing, daredevil nature. They were polar opposites, yes, but he felt a need to prove to her that he was a gentlemanly, educated prince. His name had been changed to Petrograd, for Saint Petersburg sounded too ‘German.’ By 1917, his people were literally rioting on the streets, begging for bread. Anti-tsarist feelings were strong. It wasn’t long until the Tsar had abdicated, the Romanov dynasty ended, and the formerly illegal Bolshevik party took over. Moscow had convinced Ivan to kill of the Romanovs, and Alexei wept for weeks over the death of his beloved Anastasia. A bloody Civil War followed, and Alexei decided he’d serve as a soldier for the Whites. This didn’t end well. He was shot in the leg, the same leg that was nearly crippled at this point. And so, after the Civil War, he realized there was nothing he could do. 

Under Stalin’s rule, Piter suffered. It was clear that Stalin did not like him at all, and so he had many of his leaders killed, as well as some of the upper class and the elite of Leningrad.

During WWII, Saint Petersburg- then Leningrad- was under siege. The Germans were merciless; Hitler wanted to see Leningrad completely destroyed. It lasted for four years, and Alexei tried his best to endure the harsh conditions. Half of his city had been destroyed, he’d been shot at, beaten, bones broken, bruised and scarred, both mentally and physically. The spoiled brat he’d once been seemed to disappear, and its place, a stoic soldier. Finally, the siege ended, but both he and his city were going to take years to recover from the damage inflicted by the Germans. So, for much of the rest of the 20th century, Alexei rarely had the strength to leave his bed.

By 1980, he was dirt poor and most of his city was controlled by gangs. Alexei picked up a skill from these gangs- pick pocketing. It was a quick and easy way to make a few rubles. He’d also become very skilled at dealing with the mafia, since he could often be found making shady deals in the back alleys of Leningrad. 

When the Soviet Union had broken apart, Alexei could not have been more proud. While he had a played a large role in its forming, he was glad the whole thing was over. He had hated the Soviet Union with a passion; his life had been miserable as part of it. His name was  changed back to Saint Petersburg, much to his joy, and Saint Petersburg had again become a wealthy city of aristocrats and culture.

Nicknames;

- City Built on Bones

- City of Order

- Venice of the North

- Prince of the Baltic

- King of the Neva

- The Northern Capital

- Palmrya of the North