Dr. Karine

**This article or section needs to be updated.**Info from *Stranger Things: The Voyage* needs to be added.

## Physical information

### Hair color

Red

— Karine greeting Orlov.

**Dr. Karine** is the main antagonist of *Stranger Things: Kamchatka*, a tie-in comic to the Netflix series *Stranger Things*.

Karine is a sadistic and egotistical scientist who works for the Soviet Union at a facility in Kamchatka. She was one of the researchers working on the Keys, the experimental technology designed to allow passage into the Upside Down. Though the scientists could not produce a stable gateway, Karine found an infant Demogorgon in the rubble produced by the machine. Karine then proceeded to experiment upon the Demogorgon, feeding it as many people as she could - prisoners and free citizens alike - to strengthen and weaponize the beast.

## History

After American scientists at Hawkins Lab accidentally created a gate to an alternate dimension on November 6, 1983, the Soviet Union eventually learned of the lab's activities. General Stepanov and other officials became hell-bent on creating a Russian-operated gate, hoping access to the other world could give the Soviets an advantage in the Cold War.

Within a year, Dr. Karine, Dr. Alexei and other Soviet scientists had invented 'the Key', an experimental machine that produced gates via a controlled energy beam. At some point between late 1983 and early 1984, a small team of scientists, including Dr. Karine, conducted an experiment test-running the new technology. However, the volatile machine suffered a grave malfunction upon activation, fatally electrocuting practically all of the scientists standing nearby, with Dr. Karine being the sole survivor. Though her team declared the experiment to be a failure, Karine disagreed after she found a strange infant creature in the rubble produced by the machine.

Conducting experiments on it as well on psychic powers and the Upside Down, Dr. Karine feeds prisoners and watches with glee as the Demogorgon eats the prisoners. When Dr. Karine has Dr. Boris Orlov summoned, horrified by the sight of the Demogorgon and that Russia is planning to weaponize them, he runs away and has his children keep his device safe as he is kidnapped and beaten.

Dr. Karine holds him hostage and forces him to develop his psychic device again for her experiments, having then fed another prisoner as a demonstration on what would happen if he refuses.

Sending Ivan Kolochev to claim the device, Karine has Orlov work with a student dedicated towards Orlov's research, Dr. Lem, to perfect the device he created. However, Orlov sabotages it and the experiment fails, severing the Demogorgon's connection to the Upside Down, slowly killing it. Orlov tries to deny it and Karine declares Orlov a failure of a researcher and with his treachery, Lem useless as she then casts the pleading Lem down to the Demogorgon, forcing Orlov watch the Demogorgon butchers and eats Lem.

Ivan claims Orlov's device by the end, so Karine uses it to strengthen and heal the Demogorgon, intending to keep feeding it people to beef it up for her goals of weaponizing it. With her goal complete, Orlov is brought to Karine and held at gunpoint as Orov is now useless to her. While Orlov tries to warn Karine that even her superiors will find it too much and will suffer the same fate he is now facing, Karine dismisses it as she attempts to feed him to the Demogorgon. However, Orlov's preteen son Leonid rushes in to save him, but Karine anyway releases the Demogorgon, wanting to feed Leonid to it as well. Karine was then punched and knocked down by Orlov's daughter Anna.

## References

### Canon hierarchy

1. ↑ Information from *Stranger Things: Kamchatka*, a Tier 3 source, conflicts with what's presented in the main series.

	* In the fourth season, the Soviets are shown to have captured various Demogorgons, with the adult Demogorgon presumably captured the same way (via the gate at Starcourt Base). This is at odds with *Stranger Things: Kamchatka*, which depicts Dr. Karine discovering an infant Demogorgon amongst the Kamchatkan Key's wreckage.