Moscow Institute of Magic

"For the people, for the state, and for the heart and soul of mother Russia"
-Motto of the Institute
The Moscow Institute of Magic, more commonly known as the MIM, is the national mage agency of the Free City of Moscow. It was founded in 2049 by Nera Zoraskaya. It is tasked by the White Cross and the remnants of the Russian government to protect the people, research magic and magic anomalies, and prevent the Norilsk Hazardous Quarantine from spreading out of its containment. Although on paper the Moscow Institute does not have much political power, it exerts significant local influences on the regions it controls on behalf of Moscow. 
While the overworld of Russia is a tumultuous land of civil war, the nation's underworld society is ruled almost soley by the Moscow Institute. None of the fronts allow for the presence of guilds and almost all detest the White Cross, placing the responsibility of maintaining the underworld's security almost entirely in the MIM's hands. 
Though the institution is legally a semi-democratic meritocracy, in practice it is a matriarchy ruled over by the Zoraskaya Clan. Its current director is Nera Zoraskaya's great-granddaughter, Ekaterina Mikhaelovna Zoraskaya. 
The institute has a sinister reputation plagued by allegations of kidnapping, corruption, brainwashing, amnestic manipulation, assassination, black market deals, trafficking, human experimentation, and eldritch dealings.