Vasily Pavlichenko

**Overview**
Gallery

* After injury (Manga)
* Before injury (Manga)
* After Injury (Anime)
* Before Injury (Anime)

**Vasily Pavlichenko** (Василий Павличенко) is a Russian sniper who ambushed Kiroranke and his group at the Russian border. After losing to Ogata in a sniper duel, he is now seeking revenge.

## Appearance

Vasily is a young man, approximately 25-30 years old, with sharp eyes, defined eyelashes, and a furrowed brow. He has wavy medium-length hair, bold sideburns, and a short and neat Shenandoah beard.

When Vasily is first introduced, he's seen wearing a tall wool cap, known as a papakha, with a cockade indicating he is a low-rank member of the Imperial Russian Army. He wears a lightly-colored, belted coat, with dark gloves, pants, and boots. He seems to wear his signature *bashlyk* wrapped around his neck at the time of his introduction. He also carries a Mosin-Nagant (M1891) rifle, binoculars, and a crossbody bag.

After being shot through the jaw in his duel with Ogata, Vasily wears his bashlyk with the long ends tied around his face to hide his disfigurement. Because of his injuries, he is unable to speak for the majority of the story. Occasionally, he's seen wearing the papakha with the crown unfurled, and the wool valve covering his face. His hair also appears to be longer and more unkempt.

The injury that Vasily received from Ogata was so gruesome that it made Yoshitake Shiraishi squirm in disgust.

## Personality

Vasily is a highly observant and analytical man, able to make quick, intelligent strategic decisions. His personality and thought process seems to be similar to Hyakunosuke Ogata's as seen during their duel.

Vasily can appear cold and uncaring as he believes people who are driven by emotion make poor snipers. He dislikes arrogance, as he sees his position as a sniper to be above others. He seems care more for his passions than anything else, as seen in his persistence in pursuing Ogata

Outside of battle, Vasily seems more relaxed, following Sugimoto's group in hopes of encountering Ogata. Due to the language barrier, he has difficulty communicating with the others.

## Background

Vasily was born in the Russian Empire, Yeleninka village. He has always been good at drawing but was unable to attend art school due to his family's poverty.

Vasily fought in the Russo-Japanese War alongside his comrade, Ilya.

After the Russian government received a tip from the First Lieutenant of the 7th Division, Tsurumi regarding Kiroranke's intention to illegally cross the border by hiding amongst nomadic groups, Vasily, Ilya, and two other men were stationed at the Russian border.

## Plot

### Border Crossing Arc

True to Tsurumi's information, Vasily sees Asirpa's Group with Kiroranke hiding among the Oroks attempting to crossing the border. Seeing the latest model of rifle used by the Japanese Imperial Army being carried, Vasily shoots its carrier, an elderly Orok man, which causes Asirpa's group to stop as they became alerted to the Russian presence.

Vasily shoots once more when the younger Orok man attempts to help his father who had been shot, but misses when Kiroranke pushes him to the ground. As Asirpa's Group attempts to run away into the forest, Vasily shoots several of their reindeers to slow them down. When Kiroranke steps out into the open to rescue the Orok man, Vasily is surprised and despite Ilya's orders, does not shoot him. However. Ilya is instead shot by Hyakunosuke Ogata which gave Asirpa's Group an opportunity to run into the woods nearby.

Vasily leaves in order to confront Ogata but is stopped by one of his comrades who is worried about Ilya's health. Vasily tells them that Ogata purposely shot Ilya in the stomach so that he would become a burden to and slow them down. After hearing this, Ilya tells them all to go after Asirpa's group. As the other two men look for them, Vasily hides in the woods in order to find Ogata, using his comrades as bait.

As Vasily ponders about what Ogata would do, he realizes that Ogata's true target was not his comrades, but Vasily himself. He then notices his comrades activating a *moloccou* trap which kills one of them and injures the other. He recognizes the trap as belonging to Kiroranke but does not head down to tend to his comrades. After some time searching, Vasily eventually finds Ogata's position as his eyes widen up in anticipation.

Having found his prey, Vasily observes Ogata preparing to shoot for a certain kill, but hesitated after seeing him remain perfectly still. After over an hour had passed, Vasily realized something was wrong and decided to change his position while keeping an eye on Ogata.

As he got closer, he found that Ogata had left behind footprints which he had attempted to scrubbed away. He was able to track them to a Uilta casket up in a tree. He concludes that the figure must've been a scarecrow that Ogata set up and that he must be hiding in the casket. Vasily then fired several shots into the casket. Unfortunately, his predictions were incorrect as the "scarecrow" really had been Ogata who hid by eating snow to lower his body temperature and prevent his breath from showing. Vasily then is shot through the jaw.

### Return to Hokkaido Arc

Vasily recovers from his wound and, angered by the fact that neither sniper died, decides to track down Ogata. In the town of Shizuka, Vasily finds Ogata's companions, Yoshitake Shiraishi and Asirpa along with the rest of Sugimoto's Group and decides to track them. Using his ability as a sniper, he shoots Shiraishi in the leg from a distant building, alarming Sugimoto's Group. Vasily continues to fire off shots at them in order to prevent them from moving around or escaping.

As Vasily watches Shiraishi struggle to escape with his leg wound, he waits for Ogata to emerge, who he believes is Shiraishi's ally. He continues to shoot at Sugimoto's Group until he feels the presence of another person in the building with him. Vasily recognizes this presence as something dangerous and shoots at the *shōji* door when it opens, only to realize that it was a mirror, not his foe.

When Saichi Sugimoto jumps into the room to attack him, Vasily is prepared to fight at short-range and pulls out a revolver. Sugimoto throws his miso box at Vasily, stunning him and knocking his gun away as he attempts to stab Vasily with his bayonet. Vasily is able to block the attack and flees in hopes of creating distance between them, recognizing his relative weakness at close-range. Sugimoto is able to grab Vasily through a *shōji* door and throws him to the ground. He attempts to stab Vasily once more until he sees a drawing of Ogata tucked under Vasily's coat.

Sugimoto's Group finds out Vasily's connection to Kiroranke and Hajime Tsukishima reveals that Kiroranke has died, that Ogata has gone missing, that their group only came to retrieve Asirpa, and that they have nothing to do with the Russian Emperor's assassination. They head outside to meet Shiraishi who is understandably upset about being shot in the leg. While Shiraishi demands an apology from Vasily, Tsukishima dryly translates Shiraishi's rant. Vasily takes his mask off to reveal his injury to Shiraishi, who appears disgusted before jumping on a dog sled and telling him to go back to Russia. As Sugimoto's Group leaves town, Vasily follows after them on horseback in the hopes of finding Ogata.

### Bear Man Arc

After helping Sugimoto, Asirpa, and Shiraishi escape from Lt. Tsurumi and the 7th Division, Vasily follows the rest of the gang to Hokkaido, where they temporarily stay in an Ainu cise. While there, they realize they’re short on travelling funds and need a way to get some money. After hearing that a man allegedly made 50 yen in a day panning for gold in the Uryu river, they quickly make their way there in hopes of sharing that fortune too. The group made it over just in time to save the life of a falling man, who turned out to be the gold panning master who struck it rich.

While Sugimoto and Shiraishi were taken under the wing of Master Heita, Vasily wandered off into the woods and began to sketch the wildlife around him. He sat on the trunk of a fallen tree and began to sketch a Eurasian Wren perched nearby on a branch. Asirpa tried telling him the Ainu name of the bird (Chackchack-Kamuy), but Vasily does not understand Japanese. After a while of silent drawing, Noriko (a member of Heita’s family), approaches and asks if Vasily would draw her too. She leads him into their hunting hut and takes off her clothes to get a nude portrait done. Only shortly after they began, Noriko’s husband, Taka, drags her away and begins to scold her, shooting dirty looks at Vasily.

Vasily exits the hut and returns to sitting on his fallen tree trunk to continue drawing. Taka comes up to him and tells him with hand gestures that his binoculars have been taken by Noriko and placed atop a fungus growing off the side of a tree. Oblivious to Taka’s malicious ulterior motives, he makes his way to the tree and sets off an arrow trap that was originally meant for deer. Leaping to save him, Asirpa kicks Vasily to the ground just in time to dodge the arrow. She then points to a trap sign carved into a tree and tells him to learn to recognize them. Vasily probably doesn't learn to recognize them because he doesn't speak Japanese.

Once more, Vasily resumes sitting on his favored tree and begins to finish the portrait of ‘Noriko’, drawing with a concentrated expression and feverishly fast strokes. Shiraishi rushes over to his side to get him to protect Master Heita with him, but upon seeing Vasily’s art, he stops in shock. Instead of Noriko, Vasily had drawn Heita naked, showing his escaped convict tattoos. It was revealed that Noriko, Taka, and the rest of his family members were all Heita’s multiple personalities.

Vasily has no idea what’s going on, but follows Shiraishi as he takes the drawing to warn Sugimoto and Asirpa about the tattooed convict. They only manage to make it there after Heita’s final blow had been dealt. From a distance, Vasily watches Shiraishi cry while cradling Heita’s dead body.

### Boutarou the Pirate Arc

Sugimoto, Asirpa, and Shiraishi board a steam boat headed to Ebetsu in hopes of finding a new tattooed prisoner. Vasily decides not to board the passenger boat and instead chooses to ride the storage boat along with the horses and luggage instead. Sugimoto notes that he probably prefers to keep his distance to wait for Ogata, essentially using them as bait.

Shortly after they depart, the passenger boat gets hijacked by Boutarou’s gang of pirates. An armed elderly postman begins shooting at the aggressors wildly, and one by one, the hijackers drop dead with clean headshots. The passengers aboard the ship believed the post man had excellent marksmanship, but it was actually Vasily who fired at the same time who really killed the men.

A passing military ship notices that something wrong is going on aboard the passenger ship, but at that point, Boutarou had seized control of the wheel and rammed the two ships together. The abrupt change in direction and speed had snapped the cord connecting the storage boat to the main ship. With nothing pulling his vessel forward, Vasily is left in a free flowing state. Vasily only seems mildly inconvenienced and generally unconcerned.

After the main conflict is over, Vasily nonchalantly drifts back towards the passenger ship, where the main gang (plus Boutarou) joins him on the small boat, paddling towards the shore.

Once on the shore, Asirpa cooks everybody a meal using freshly caught sturgeon. Vasily is seen waiting for his portion while sitting in front of the pot alongside Shiraishi and Sugimoto.

Afterwards, they begin to head to Sapporo.

## Abilities and Equipments

* **Sniping:** Vasily is an experienced sniper. His rifle of choice is the Mosin-Nagant.
* **Spotting:** To help with his sniping, Vasily also has spotting skills which he uses to observe points of interest and to find his targets. Like Ogata, he is able to accurately hit a target without a scope or shooting aid.
* **Drawing:** Vasily is talented at drawing as he is able to make quick and accurate sketches of other people.
* **Memory:** Vasily has demonstrated his near photographic memory skills on multiple occasions. He is able to draw lifelike and accurate drawings of something, even if he has only seen the subject for a short moment, or continue drawing even after the subject is long gone.

## Trivia

* Vasily is likely based on three real life figures:
	+ **Vasily Zaitsev**, a sniper of the Red Army who during the 2nd World War killed 225 enemy soldiers, 32 of them with a no-scope standard-issue rifle. The resemblance is further confirmed by Vasily being born in the same village as his real life counterpart.
	+ **Lyudmila Pavlichenko**, a female Soviet sniper of the Red Army during World War II, who was credited with 309 confirmed deaths, making her the most successful female sniper in recorded history.
	+ **Simo Häyhä**, a Finnish Army sniper who fought in the Winter War (November 1939-March 1940) and scored 500 kills, although only 259 were confirmed, the highest number of sniper kills in any major war. During the last days of the war an explosive-bullet fired by a Soviet sniper hit Simo in his lower left jaw. That resulted deforming his face with his upper jaw, most of his lower jaw, and most of his left cheek missing.
* Vasily likes green tea, rice, and pelmeni; however, he dislikes squirrels.
* Vasily and Ogata are the same age.
* Vasily is shorter than Nihei and taller than Sugimoto, Toni Anji, and Wilk.
* Vasily is lighter than Nihei, same weight as Sugimoto and Tsukishima, and heavier than Tsurumi.
* Vasily's molars were destroyed by Ogata's shot, so now he can only chew with his front teeth.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Golden Kamuy Manga: Chapter 314
2. ↑ Character profiles from the Golden Kamuy fanbook
3. ↑ Q&A section from the Golden Kamuy fanbook
4. ↑ Character profiles from the Golden Kamuy fanbook
5. ↑ Q&A section from the Golden Kamuy fanbook
6. ↑ Character profiles from the Golden Kamuy fanbook
7. ↑ Character profiles from the Golden Kamuy fanbook
8. ↑ Character profiles from the Golden Kamuy fanbook