S069 - Shulgin, Valentin

[Buko]

Name: Valentin Shulgin
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Grade: Senior
School: John Endecott Memorial Academy
Hobbies and Interests: Playwriting, poetry, history, literature, conservationism, public speaking

Appearance: Valentin is of above-average height and has stocky build, standing at 5’11” and weighing 193 pounds, with only 11% being body fat. He is muscular, with definite but not particularly pronounced bicep and ab muscles. His neck is short and thick with a prominent Adam’s Apple. His shoulders are broader than his hips, though his legs are similarly toned like the rest of his body.

He has medium almond-shaped eyes, coloured grey. He has a forward brow and a Roman nose that hooks slightly downward. His facial structure is rather square, with prominent but low cheekbones, a square jaw, and a pronounced chin. His complexion is very pale, and he sunburns easily, so he usually applies sunscreen before doing anything outside.

He has short, curly, dark brown hair that is soft to the touch, but rather oily. He has a neatly-trimmed full beard, with no hair on his cheeks or his neck. Valentin has thick, arched eyebrows, which gives him a naturally affable disposition. He has a prominent, two-inch scar on his left cheek and is missing the first molar on his left side from a bike accident when he was twelve. He has small lips but a well-defined philtrum. He has large ears that stick out at a 20-degree angle from his head.

Since Valentin sunburns easily, he tends to wear long, heavy clothes, even in summer months. He wears jackets, sweaters, jeans, and thermals most of the time, and it is rare to see him in shorts, t-shirts, and tank tops. If he wears those, he always applies heavy sunscreen. He also wears hats, most typically a black beanie that was knitted by his mother. He has a grey Shinola watch with a brown leather strap which he wears daily.

On the day of his abduction, Valentin was wearing a black trench coat with a baby blue sweater underneath, with a pine green shirt over the sweater. Both the baby blue sweater and the green shirt were inside out, as he was in a rush that morning and hadn't quite noticed his mistake. He was also wearing a pair of blue jeans, a brown belt, grey thermal socks, a pair of black loafers, his watch, a pair of Rayban aviator sunglasses, and his beanie.

Biography: Valentin Ivanovich Shulgin was born to Ivan Shulgin and Yelizaveta Shulgina (nee Makarova) on June 12, 2003 in Novosibirsk, Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia. Ivan Shulgin was a factory worker and Yelizaveta Shulgina was a high school chemistry teacher, and the two of them provided a meager but steady income for their household. Valentin was the second and last child of the couple, with their first child being Svetlana Shulgina, born December 9, 1999. After Valentin began to speak, his parents quickly learned that he had a prominent lisp, but they could not afford to send him to speech therapy. What he lacked in speech skills he more than made up for in reading ability, and from the age of four he was already reading chapter books fluently with his mother. This ability and exposure nurtured a lifelong interest in reading, and a fascination with authors and writing.

Although the Shulgin household was happy, it was austere, and Valentin’s parents encouraged the children to pick up hobbies that were easy on the finances. Valentin made the natural choice of reading and writing. He would spend his meager allowance purchasing books at the thrift shop or new notebooks when his old ones became filled with short stories. Svetlana was markedly different, and chose to do more physical activities, to the neglect of intellectual pursuits.

Due to Valentin’s lisp, he lacked self-confidence when it came to speaking and rarely talked, especially whenever he entered kindergarten. While he could talk around his parents, he was afraid of speaking in class for fear of becoming a social outcast. By not speaking entirely, however, he still managed to become a target of ridicule, with most of the schoolchildren constantly bothering him and trying to force him to speak. Valentin, caught in a predicament, decided to try and fix his lisp without a speech therapist. With the help of his mother, Valentin was able to mitigate the worst of his lisp after several months of hours-long training per day. Whenever Valentin thought sufficient progress had been made, he began to speak much more openly and regularly in the classroom. The positive reception he received from his peers granted him a surge of confidence, and a newfound appreciation and passion for public speaking.

When Valentin was 7, he went for a walk along the River Ob with his paternal grandfather Mstislav, who lived in Barnaul. Valentin was dismayed at the sight of the river’s pollution from the numerous mega-corporations in Novosibirsk proper. Mstislav took notice, and explained to Valentin the increasing amounts of pollution and global warming in the world, but also told him about how ordinary people were stepping up to fight this tragedy across the globe, and encouraged Valentin to be one of those people. Valentin took this to heart, and soon began to espouse environmentally-oriented ideas and opinions and share them with his parents. His parents were supportive of his endeavors, although Ivan felt somewhat uncomfortable due to the fact that he worked for some of the mega-corporations Valentin so loathed.

Grandfather Mstislav would continue to influence Valentin, this time through his political beliefs. When Valentin asked his grandfather what life was like under the Soviet Union, Mstislav became angrier than he had ever seen him. Mstislav revealed that he had been a political prisoner for espousing liberal ideas and his youth, and had been sent to a forced labor camp near Vorkuta. He participated in the 1953 Vorkuta Uprising, striking along with his fellow prisoners and regularly listening to the Voice of America broadcasts until the Soviet military assisted the prison guards in shutting down the revolt. Mstislav continued to spout anti-Soviet ideas, claiming rampant government abuses of personal liberties and its poisonous authoritarianism caused the downfall of Russia’s superpower status. These opinions permanently shaped Valentin’s own political beliefs, and he learned to treasure both liberal democratic ideas and personal freedoms, and opposed authoritarianism in all forms.

Valentin’s elementary school years were fairly unremarkable. He retained his straight A’s and kept a close circle of friends by his side. It was in middle school that he fell in love with history. The advanced history class that he was in taught him about the many revolutions, mutinies, revolts, and movements that were all idealistic in nature, and almost all crushed by their opposition, or even themselves. Valentin was entranced by these revolutions and their stories, and began to search for these men to find their tales. He felt a great admiration for Valery Sablin, the naval officer who revolted against the Soviet government for betraying Lenin’s democratic ideals, for Pavel Pestel, the liberal leader of the Decembrist Movement who sought to bring great reforms to the Russian monarchy, and he was greatly inspired by their stories. They had, in defiance of all possible odds, stood up and fought for the idealistic goals that they thought were right. The actions of these revolutionaries inspired Valentin to become far more vocal in his opinions about freedom of speech, the press, liberal democracy, and his dislike of the authoritarianism in the current Russian administration, something which greatly worried his parents.

Valentin began reading foreign literature and political manifestos. He was interested in learning English to help him communicate whenever he planned to leave the country, and began making serious efforts to understand the language. He began listening to online classes as well as reading books in English in order to increase his fluency. He practiced and practiced over the entirety of the summers of 7th and 8th grade and during the 8th grade school year. He eventually became fluent in English, though his speech was highly formal in manner. Soon after this, Svetlana graduated, and was accepted into the University of St. Petersburg.

Eighth grade was extremely awkward for Valentin, as puberty had finally hit him. He grew seven inches in four months, and began to grow facial hair at an accelerated rate. His voice finally dropped, giving him the tenor voice he has now. Throughout all of this, he maintained his activism, and his peers were becoming wary of him and his seemingly radical ideas of political freedom and uncensored artistic expression. Although he was not homosexual himself, his beliefs in personal liberty also led him to recognize that anyone, including LGBTQ+ people, deserved to be able to express their love for each other, but due to his mother country’s harsh laws against it, he had not yet developed the courage to be open about his revelations.

This came to a head during the late stage of eighth grade. He had finally built up the courage to advocate for LGBTQ+ rights in a nation where it was illegal to inform children that gay people exist. Valentin’s repeated vocalizations of this and for dissent against the government attracted the attention of the principal, who reported what he heard to the Federal Security Service. While the operatives did not believe that a teenager being outspoken was worthy of more than a fine — which they promptly delivered to the family — they noted his relation to Mstislav, which caused greater concern. The operatives believed that Mstislav’s actions constituted extremism and disobedience to the government, and — given potential fears that Valentin was not the only family member radicalized by Mstislav — elected to watch the Shulgin family a little more closely than before. Ivan Shulgin, who had a friend in the FSS, was tipped off about the attention. The family took the hint, realized it would be likely their son would not be welcome in the current political climate, and, over the course of the next year, started to file for U.S. residency. However, Svetlana chose to stay behind in St. Petersburg due to mutual agreement between her and her parents, as she had already started living outside of home and her parents did not want her to interrupt her studies. In short order, he and his parents applied for U.S. residency and filled out the I-485 form and got their biometric information taken. The U.S. was chosen due to the opportunity present in the job market, and both were able to land employment in jobs they still work today — Yelizaveta as a library assistant at a Boston private school, and Ivan as a factory worker. Due to Yelizaveta’s career requiring an advanced degree, she got a EB-2 green card while Ivan, a skilled worker, got a EB-3 green card. After an exceptionally tense ten months of waiting, the family officially became U.S. permanent residents, with Salem becoming their permanent home.

Valentin was thankful for his diligence in learning English, as that would now be his primary speaking language. He tried to get his family to speak English with some success. While they could speak some English, it was still rather broken and halting. His family found cheap housing in West Salem, and they bought the cheapest apartment they could find in order to save money. Soon Valentin and his parents moved into a cramped apartment which could barely hold three people. It wasn’t much, but it was home for Valentin. His relationship with his parents was extremely strained. They resented that his outspoken activism and unorthodox political beliefs had forced them to move away from their home and jobs, and separated them from their daughter and extended family. Valentin was filled with guilt for his actions and began to interact with his parents as little as possible. His passion for politics had been tempered, and he shelved his activism.

During this time, Valentin was enrolled in the school closest to home, John Endecott Memorial Academy. His status as an immigrant quickly spread around the school, and he was treated as something of a curiosity. This, along with the resulting culture shock from suddenly and permanently his mother country, made it difficult for Valentin to properly integrate himself into the school system, and his grades and mental health suffered. However, Valentin used this period of emotional strain to rekindle his passion for writing and use it as an outlet for his negative thoughts. He started writing poetry, and soon afterward he began to write scripts for plays. Most of these poems and plays were dark in nature, and usually had unhappy families and sad endings to reflect Valentin’s inner feelings. Valentin decided to join the drama club, since they specialized in many of Valentin’s interests, and he was accepted into the club. This did much to raise his confidence, and helped him acquaint himself with the American schooling system.

It was in the drama club that he made some of his first friends. His closest friend, however, was met at the cafeteria. Alexander Hawthorne was sitting alone at a lunch table, quietly building a bridge. Valentin sat next to him, which Alexander had quite rudely objected to, until Valentin complimented him on his bridge. Something about Alexander’s demeanor had changed, and Alexander talked at great lengths about his love for engineering. The two have been best friends ever since.

By senior year, Valentin’s natural charisma and personal affability had turned him from the resident curiosity in school to a very recognizable and friendly face on campus. However, some still perceive him to be an oddball due to his excessively formal speech and Russian customs. Valentin has shown no interest in beginning a relationship with anyone, and has thrown his full focus into finishing school with a 4.0 GPA, which he currently has. Valentin takes school extremely seriously in order to widen his prospects for colleges and future careers. His favourite classes — and the ones he finds most easy to excel at — are English and history, as both lean into his hobbies of literature and history and allow him to participate in them in the present day.

Most of his free time in school is spent in the Performance Hub or the Practical Workshop whenever he wants to hang out with Alexander. Outside of school, Valentin spends a lot of time at the Paul Revere Memorial Museum and the Salem Willows, and tries to spend as little time at home as possible, due to lingering resentment with his parents. Due to America’s freedom of speech laws, Valentin has taken to activism again, and doesn’t hesitate to give impromptu speeches in favor of anti-authoritarianism, the conservation of natural habitats, and the preservation of democratic institutions in Washington Square.

Valentin’s relationship with his parents is very strained. They resent him for forcing them to abandon the only country they’ve ever known as home, and Valentin feels a constant pang of guilt whenever he is around them. For this reason, he does not like to spend time at home, although the fact that they have both regained jobs has alleviated this feeling somewhat.

Valentin desperately wants to go to college, but his parents have practically no money to spend for his college education. He’s hoping his excellent grades and SAT scores will give him enough scholarship money to get a free college education. While his plans are not totally concrete, he does know that he wants to do something in the art field, most likely becoming a playwright after college. He aspires to direct a Broadway production, and he plans to infuse his plays with many political messages.

Advantages: Valentin is a well-known and friendly person in JEM, so he will have little trouble finding or making a group of allies. He is also exceptionally intelligent, and he can use his natural charisma and wit to talk himself out of dangerous situations.
Disadvantages: Valentin has poor physical strength, greatly limiting his capacity to use any assigned weapon on the island. He is also rather slow, and he has poor endurance. Valentin is very outspoken in his opinions, and his tendency to aggressively defend said opinions could land him in trouble when faced with a similarly stubborn person.

Designated Number: Student No. #069

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Designated Weapon: Chain whip

Conclusion: Because I may be bad but I'm perfectly good at it! Sex in the air, I don't care, I like the smell of it! Sticks and stones may break my bones but chains and whips excite me. S069 na-na-na-na-na, come on! - Jim Greynolds