Valentin Shashin
For most men, the black gold of Surgut is a supreme temptation, a blank check that could let them fulfill their every impulse. Perhaps Valentin Dmitrievich Shashin is no different.
A middle-manager in the lean government of the Free Aviators, Shashin's career had always been as a supporter, managing the intensive fuel needs of such an air force. But the Free Aviators are long lost now. Without their ever-present reign in the skies, the government of Surgut was left to its civilian components. By luck, by diligence, Valentin Shashin had managed to become the most well-known of these bureaucrats - and, in time, their leader.
Now in power, Shashin focuses less on the survival of Russia and more on the refugees who take shelter in his borders. They are clothed, fed, and sheltered, treated with the dignity that Lenin always dreamed of - provided they spend a few years in the refineries. For the cost of this working-class utopia is an endless stream of fuel, sucked from the ground and sold to whichever warlord might need it.
Undoubtedly, Surgut has the highest standard of living in Western Siberia. Yet a doubt lingers in the chairman, even as the people of Surgut cheer his name. Bocharova used whatever resources she had to save Russians across the nation, no matter their ideology or creed. Shashin shakes the hands of despots and fuels their reigns of terror. Yes, he has saved a city - but what has become of the nation?