Roman Novikov

## Roman Kasparnovich Novikov

Roman was born in Tallinn, Estonian SSR, on May 9th, 1988, to Alina and Kaspar Novikov, the latter being at the time, on deployment to Afghanistan. Due to that, Roman was raised by his mother alone until he turned 1. Kaspar used to be a staunch communist, with Roman’s grandfather being a high party member of Stalin’s government, and important official in the development of tanks post-WWII. Alina did not agree with Kaspar, but stayed silent up until now.

Roman was very young when the USSR fell. It was during this time that his father started slowly changing ideologies, as Roman watched. At this point, the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic was already falling, and the world for Roman was changing. His father went from being a pioneer of communism, to a hard-on advocate for the independence of Estonia, so much that when he returned in 1989, he helped orchestrate various events during the famed Singing Revolution, and played a huge part in the Baltic Chain demonstrations of 1989. Kaspar declared himself an Estonian citizen, and was hoping for the same to be done to his children, Roman and Gavril (b. 1981), but alas, that didn't happen. Alina became a Russian citizen in 1998, with the birth of Kliment. Alina would become one of the first women to join the new Duma.

Gavril gained Estonian citizenship instead of Russian, due to paperwork issues that stemmed from the issuing facilities mixing up the piles of papers they had. This meant that now, Gavril was a citizen living in the wrong fuckin country. Nice job bozo.

This meant, however, that Roman was now eligible to attend military schools in Russia. He moved into his Grandfather Artyom's place, and was able to attend classes there from 1992 to graduation.

In 1996, Kliment Novikov was born, and that added another brother to the list. Kliment was raised in Estonia for more of his life, before leaving to Russia when he was 8. At this point, Roman was about 16, so having an 8 year old brother wasn't the best idea... But, because now, Gavril was in commissioning school, he got to take care of the new boy.

The two were like peas in a pod. Roman would bring Kliment everywhere they fuckin went, with his homies to the mall, to the grocery store with his grandfather, around the neighbourhood with the family cat. Anywhere. This includes to the tank range.

Roman was the one to introduce tankery to Kliment, all those years ago, after taking him to the range and letting him sit in the tank while they moved it around. You could say that he was Klim's first coach. In the few years that those two would hang out, Roman gave all the information he knew about tankery towards that little boy. Kliment would go on to dominate the Russian spectre of tankery, winning medals regionally, nationally, wherever!

But all good things come to an end.

Roman was accepted into a tank commissioning school when he turned 18. This meant that he had to leave Kliment by himself for a little while. This made him sad, but it was ok. Now, he had bigger things to worry about, and that includes the possibility of him getting deployed in the middle of his officership. Yikes.

Roman spent 5 long years attending the Kazan Higher Tank Command School, before getting his commission at the age of 23. He finished his bachelors of mechanical engineering, before becoming a lieutenant in the Russian Army. He found out that Kliment had continued the sport, and to his delight, now knew that he could be a good coach to others as well, to gain the success that Kliment had. He volunteered for an overseas program, in order to teach methods of tanksport to schools affiliated with the Russian military, and landed himself here, at Pravda.

Now, he sorta is just there with the rest of the Pravda instructors. Just... chilling, I guess.