History of Masquerade in Russia
Some questions of approach
This text is partly written to clarify my point of view on a number of aspects of Masquerade as a system. It should not be forgotten that, on the one hand, the authors of Masquerade sought to achieve a certain realism where they understood the problem (the world of darkness is a fairly close projection of ours), and on the other hand, Masquerade as a system was designed for American or European players, who are unlikely to plan the action of their chronicle in Russia.
Meanwhile, the realities of our countries are quite different from each other. The standard plot of Masquerade usually unfolds in a large metropolis capable of feeding a significant number of Cainites - there are few such cities on Russian territory. The American legal system also significantly affects the position of a Cainite, allowing a vampire to better protect his privacy. There were no mandatory clean-up days or district police officers who had a habit of visiting residents.
Therefore, we should slightly modify the system so that it would be calculated for our realities, especially the realities of the hinterland, and would not look like a sprawling cranberry against the background of an illustration for "Tetris". To understand who ruled in Russia since ancient times, what the situation looks like now and what Russian hunters are. And in order to avoid contradictions with what has already been written, we will assume that the existing information is what is known about Russia in the West and in the USA, and the realities may differ.
Another detail concerns the combination of the principles of the Masquerade and the understanding of history. The entire history of the Earth should not be presented as a shadow of the political intrigues of vampires, listing all the notable historical figures in batches - the Cainites clearly appreciated the principle of secret power and control by threads, especially since the goal of their community is not so much the subordination of people to themselves, as ensuring the safety of their infrastructure in their society. A vampire is a nocturnal creature, and the daily routine of a politician is contraindicated for him. After all, it is difficult to imagine the great battles of history or most of the ceremonial events taking place at night. And this means that the vampires in power were not the first, but the second or third persons.
As for the story that until 1991 the USSR was ruled by the Brujah Council, and then they were eaten by Baba Yaga, who turned out to be a 4th generation Nosferatu, who was then eaten by another one from the same clan, disguised as a little girl, I think that the vampires themselves have legends that they tell neonates in order to hide the truth or just a bitter defeat. After all, it should be remembered that everything that mortals know was specially put into the corresponding heads. The game perfectly puts the corresponding stereotypes into the heads of mortals, while in reality everything is somewhat different. You can put on various masks at the Masquerade, but few are able to guess that a real vampire will come to such a holiday in a vampire mask.
In general - many thanks to Another Max, Scandi, Nikki and Chi for consultations when developing a new theme for me.
Cainites before the Great October
Vampires have existed in Russia for quite a long time - let's not forget that Ukraine is one of those regions where legends about the living dead have been around for a particularly long time. Let's recall at least the stories of Alexei Tolstoy, which appeared before similar works in the West, or the fact that the terms "voivode" or "sorcerer" are still in use (see the book about the Sabbat).
Which clans exactly? None of the standard seven clans of the Camarilla are particularly suitable for this. Therefore, the first to come to mind are the Old Clan Tzimisce - those who did not catch the symbiote of Vicissitude in their searches. Let's not forget that they are one of the most ancient clans, whose traditional lands are not so far away.
Tzimisce were probably divided into several bloodlines, some of which were simply unknown in Europe. Let us recall that each of them has Animalism and Auspex, and the third discipline was either Dominate, or Koldunic Sorcery, or Potency.
Without getting into power themselves, the Tzimisce ruled through advisers - volkhvov (magicians and pagan priests of pre-Christian Rus'). It was from this time that the theme of the "native land" became important for Russia, with which, as they say, a line of sorcery unknown outside of Russia was associated, associated with the control of weather and relief - but exclusively on their native territory. Unusually cold winters during the invasion of Napoleon or Hitler can be associated with it.
The second clan of local origin were, most likely, the Gangrel, who quickly mastered the open spaces of the Russian plains and coexisted with the Garou in a state of armed neutrality. Without taking an active part in politics, the Gangrel always had a strong influence in Russia, which remained predominantly agrarian longer than other countries. Some Gangrel were of Scandinavian origin, some came from the East with the Mongols, but the lines quickly mixed, and partly for this reason the image of the gray wolf is so popular in Russia and is related not only to werewolves.
There is an assumption that in Ukraine and its surroundings there was another line - the classic red-lipped "upyri". Their disciplines were most likely Potence, Fortitude and Animalism, but the upyri was obliged to sleep only in his own coffin, returning to it with the sunrise, which is why they were even more territorial than the Zimishchi. At present, this line is almost completely destroyed, and there is an alternative version that most of these ghouls descended from one Gangrel who lost his humanity - each time he rose from torpor, he, without realizing it, bestowed the Embrace on his victims, after which he ran away from the peasants who armed themselves against him, and again went into torpor. The newly converted, without receiving any knowledge of their nature other than folk beliefs, quickly went mad from the Hunger and blindly attacked villages, giving rise to stories of ghouls, often appearing in different places and at different times.
The first Ventrue appeared, most likely, not from Europe, but from Byzantium (the bureaucratic paradise of that time) and were responsible for the Baptism of Rus, with the help of which they sought to displace the Tzimisce. In principle, they succeeded - the Tzimisce moved to the provinces, closer to their native lands, and it was more difficult to smoke them out from there. Therefore, especially before the division of the vamp community into the Camarilla and the Sabbat, parity was established between the two clans.
The Mongol invasion was unlikely to have been inspired by eastern vampires (the Kuei-jin simply have completely different goals for existence), but the aggression of the Teutonic Order clearly shows the desire of the Lasombra clan to expand its territory to the east.
In general, it should be noted that the Camarilla's position in Russia has always been relatively weak. This was due to the terrain (a large number of forests where the Garou lived, and a small number of large cities), and the proximity of Poland, which for a number of reasons quickly became the territory of the Sabbat, whose vampires shamelessly used peasants as servants and flocks - historical data on the life of serfs under bloodsucking lords indirectly indicate this. In Russian history, there is even a peasant uprising directed against vampires - the Krasnovodsk peasant revolt led by Dmitry Akakiev against Pan Tomashevsky, a native of Poland, who received a significant land plot for his services in the fight against the impostor.
Historical documents mention that Tomashevsky was a rare sadist, and in his old age he clearly went mad while practicing alchemy, and the rebellion began when the parish priest dared to contradict him, after which the "black lord" publicly cut the priest's throat and drank a cup of his blood as a gesture of intimidation. It is also known that the lord was not simply killed, but either impaled on an aspen stake, or simply stuck in his heart, and the blow was delivered personally by Dmitry. After the murder of one bloodsucker, the rebellion spread to other estates, but was suppressed. Akakiyev was captured by government troops, beaten with a whip and quartered in the city square in front of a large crowd of people, maintaining his presence of mind and calling on the Lord.
Another event aimed at destroying vampires was the Oprichnina. It is no coincidence that the oprichniki so often used fire and constantly carried brooms with them (in reality, just sharpened wooden stakes with twigs of belladonna). The movement arose as a desire of Ivan the Terrible to rid the country of Cainites - he himself was not a vampire, but instinctively felt how many undead were around him, and sought to "destroy the spawn of demons." It all ended with him simply going crazy, killing many innocents and never achieving his goal. But the oprichnina perfectly overlapped with the problem that arose at that time in Zimishchi - there is a version that then they clashed with the Gangrels, trying to conduct experiments on them, and the latter used the oprichniks to eliminate their rivals - let's remember the dog heads worn by the oprichniks - many of them could have been ghouls. Nevertheless, the traditional world order was destroyed and brought to life the Time of Troubles, during which the first massive arrival of European Cainites on Russian soil took place, and these were mainly representatives of the Sabbat from the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Vampires from more aesthetic clans like Ventrue or Toreador most likely appeared with us together with the reforms of Peter, and the first Russian Sires, associated with the Camarilla, were formed in the West. Perhaps, since the time of Catherine, they finally displaced the old clans, and starting from the end of the Napoleonic wars (in which one can guess another attempt of the European Camarilla to bring Russia into its sphere of influence and finally push aside Tzimisce) they clearly nested in power, and the agony of the late Romanovs could be connected precisely with the fact that the relatively alien to Russia elite completely forgot about the country. This can be connected with the fact that Russia was in the Sabbat's field of vision (according to some sources, its influence outside the capitals reached 80%), and with the fact that at the beginning of the 20th century the balance of power sharply tilted in favor of the Toreadors, who were focused not on efficiency, but on presentability.
Moreover, there was practically no strong Hunter organization on the territory of Russia - since the Ventrue's reign at court, organizations of this type began to be actively hindered (a typical example is the church policy of Peter the Great), and pre-revolutionary Russia with all its decadence was a paradise for Cainites, who had no one to fear.
Life of a Vampire in the Soviet Union
Regarding the Great October, my opinion differs from the book Rage across Russia, according to which the revolution was entirely and completely made by the Brujah. Their desire to turn the world upside down and conduct a great experiment, of course, took place, but it was superimposed on the general revolutionary situation, and on the fact that something had to be done with the vampires - due to their frankly selfish policy, they were balancing on the verge of violating the Masquerade, openly dominating the royal family. The Brujah were ideological anarchists or some supporters of permanent revolution or fanning the flames of a world fire, but it would be a mistake to imagine all communists as such. For example, the idea of the party as an "order of swordsmen" and the tendency to turn communism into a quasi-religious system make one think of some influence of the Lasombra, who, unlike the Ventrue, were interested in power exclusively for the sake of power. True, it is not very clear how they ended up among the initiators of the uprising, there is a possibility that they penetrated the system later.
IMHO, the Cainites partly provoked the events, and then the mortals did everything themselves, which determined the further development of events. After the victory, when it was necessary to build a new world, the supporters of the permanent revolution went to fan the world fire further, and their creatures remained in Russia and were destroyed - with the strengthening of Stalinism, no creature should have been cooler than the great leader.
Why did the Cainites allow Stalin to come to power? Perhaps they did not have the power to prevent this. Perhaps they saw the need for a strong leader. But most likely they thought that they were still in fact ruling.
Be that as it may, Russia in Soviet times was a very unfriendly country for vampires. The decisive role in this was played by the fact that since there were a sufficient number of Cainites among the supporters of the old regime, accustomed to defending their interests by any means (including intimidation methods worthy of Dracula), the VChK section dealing directly with them appeared almost immediately, at the very beginning of the civil war. Moreover, a sufficient number of Soviet leaders came from those regions of Russia where vampirism had been a tradition since the reign of Tzimisce and understood the nature of the danger.
The decisive moment was the story associated with the murder of the royal family, whose members, wanting to retain power by any means, agreed to the Embrace - an unprecedented act even from the point of view of the Masquerade. As they say, this is precisely what explained the "ritual" nature of the murder and the problems associated with the identification of the remains.
The department's employees made a significant contribution to the fight against the White movement, destroying almost all Cainites who openly opposed the Soviet power, and, not without the help of part of the Camarilla, rid the country of the influence of the Sabbat. They say that an interesting detail has come to light - convinced communists had no less of a reserve of True Faith than Christians, and the vampire was often powerless against the commissar.
When the destruction of any dissenters and dissidents became part of state policy, the Cainites were quickly exterminated almost to zero. Both the low population density and the rather strict control over the movement and behavior of the people - from registration to mandatory participation in a lot of events - had an effect. Not to mention the fact that any particularly brutal murder, to which the vampire's victims belonged, was considered an extraordinary crime and was investigated at the level of connecting the capabilities of the entire country. Not to mention the constant denunciation - and the Cainite's nocturnal lifestyle could well become the reason for the knock, and a significant part of the Cainites were liquidated rather as secret spies who, in the opinion of their vigilant neighbors, under the cover of night were engaged in counter-revolutionary Trotskyist espionage and sabotage activities.
Moreover, there is an unverified version according to which the mass repressions of 1937 were actually the fault of a group of renegades from the Lasombra antitribu who had infiltrated or entrenched themselves in the organs, intending to build an ideal state with vampires in power under the guise of Stalin's empire. When, under cover of night, a group of respectable people in black leather coats bursts into an apartment and takes the entire family away to nowhere, it is very difficult for those around to understand whether these were repressions against enemies of the people or Cainites going out for groceries. The final cleansing of this group of Cainites from the power structures occurred only in 1939 (the replacement of Yezhov with Beria, etc.) and was partly due to the fact that the Lasombra not only became excessively brazen, but also established connections with the Cainites in Germany, where, especially in the last years of the Reich, the state was almost completely controlled by the Sabbat.
Who and how could survive the purges? Either those who voluntarily surrendered and went on state support (more about them later), or those who tried to find themselves completely outside the system - some Nosferatu, who knew how to hide well and switched to eating rats so as not to show up, or Gangrel lost in the Siberian expanses. Some, with the help of the appropriate Disciplines, could control some clerk or district police officer so that he would forget about their peculiarities from the point of view of the Soviet bureaucracy, but this was associated with difficulties - excessive delight or special benefits for a specific person could be noticed by vigilant colleagues.
In any case, the most adapted survived, although many simply fled behind the Iron Curtain - they say that the "ship of philosophers" was a belated attempt by the Brujah and Toreador to take pleasant colleagues and cultural figures out of this zone of chaos. And later, many tried to get to Estonia, and further under water.
Let's take a short break and tell you about what the 16th department of the KGB was, which under the Soviet regime supervised not only vampires, but also everything related to the study of paranormal activity and the fight against its negative manifestations - from vampires and werewolves to psychics or cases of miracles caused by the True Faith.
When talking about this organization, which unites the main forces of Russian Hunters to this day, it is necessary to remember several points that distinguish the policy of this organization from other state agencies, as well as from religious-occult groups.
Firstly, unlike the Order of Leopold or other organizations of a religious orientation, the attitude towards Cainites of communist ideology was based on an analogue of the principles of "proletarian internationalism", within the framework of which Cainites were considered representatives of a different form of life, who were nevertheless citizens of the USSR. Under Stalin, the policy towards vampires resembled the policy towards "unreliable nations" such as the Chechens or Crimean Tatars, and in the post-Stalin era it partly resembled the work with dissident scientists, who, despite all their oddities, should be useful members of society - the authorities tried to bring their population under their control.
In other words, an individual vampire was not considered Evil, necessarily subject to destruction only because he was a vampire, and provided that the vampire was politically reliable (that is, observed the Masquerade and did not engage in activities aimed at the collapse of the country), cooperated with the authorities and was on donor rations provided by the authorities, he could safely exist and even count on some help from the authorities (able to explain to local authorities that this citizen was not a counter-revolutionary), without fear of attempts on his life by other vampires or religious fanatics. Later, such principles of coexistence were called Consensus.
Interestingly, this approach turned out to be more tolerant and mutually beneficial than the position of Western government agencies. While vampires who refused were destroyed, those who agreed received their own curator from among the punched-out political officers, were put on a centralized register (card index + the obligation to report to the curator about their movements), were assigned to certain medical institutions, where they received their rations, and began to purposefully work for the system. This mainly concerned the Ventrue, who worked as expert administrators, for whom rations were selected taking into account the diet, or the Tzimisce, who were valued for their abilities in Auspex and greater constructiveness in communication than the rare and psychotic Malkavians.
Secondly, as a result of this, the Department had more knowledge of the "physiology" of vampires than other Hunter organizations. The Consensus gave them such a rare opportunity for any other organization as receiving information from the Cainites themselves, and even using vampires for experiments. Now, of course, this practice has sunk into oblivion, but since Stalin's time, Cainite physiology has not changed, and about 15 dissertations on the problems of vampire metaphysiology or the features they use have been defended in closed medical research institutes. In any case, all widely used Disciplines are described and cataloged. This most likely does not concern the features of rare blood lines like Samedi, but the average Chekist hunter has an idea of the main Disciplines and is able to determine the type and level of the ability used.
There are also known attempts to create a special pharmacopoeia based on vampire blood, although stories about adding "extract from Brujah" to the People's Commissar's hundred grams are still historical anecdotes. More realistic information is that the Department has at its disposal special drugs designed to defeat Cainites - from a thrombin analogue to a substance that denatures dead protein at hurricane speed.
Thirdly, it is worth paying attention to the difference in the paranormal methods used by the Department. Naturally, among convinced atheists there were no bearers of the True Faith that is described in the rulebooks and is the defining one for organizations like the Inquisition. We did not create ghoul squads like the CIA, did not use Garou, as they did in the SS, and did not strive to breed artificial vampires by biochemical/genetic methods, as the British tried. As far as I know, even in the real USSR, special attention was paid to human bioenergetics (compared to magic, it seemed more scientifically explainable), research on which under the auspices of the State Security Service had been conducted since at least the mid-50s. Using the accumulations of Far Eastern culture, including the traditions of "internal" martial arts, the Department employees developed a series of methods aimed at identifying and developing various types of extrasensory abilities. From a mechanical point of view, this could mean not only the acquisition of Clairvoyance, Psychometry or Telekinesis, but also the Iron Will developed during training or the ability to inflict unbearable damage on supernatural beings (fist of God/kensai).
Magical traditions were studied rather "for general education", and mainly it was folk magic like "love spells" or shamanic rituals of small peoples of the USSR, which were extremely little known outside of it. Somewhat less importance was given to Hermeticism as the art of working with the elements or the tradition of summoning and subjugating spirits, based on the motives of Kabbalah by Papus. After the Second World War, attempts were made to study runic magic.
However, the employees of the department did have a version of True Faith, but it was a kind of continuation of the standard approach of the Department, in which vampires were perceived simply as a slightly different form of life, not a monster, but a rare nationality with its own strange cultural specificity. And the belief that there is no special mysticism in vampires, but only physiology that has not been fully studied, was so strong that IN THEIR HANDS some things designed to defeat a Cainite as a physiological being worked.
Fourthly, until the early 90s, the Department was the only organization of this type. The attempts of the Order of Leopold to begin its activities on Soviet territory were successfully thwarted. The first group was shot under Stalin as spies of the Zionist "Joint" (which gave rise to a persistent rumor in the West about Stalin and a fair number of members of our then elite belonging to Cainites), and in response to a repeated request twenty years later, General Secretary Brezhnev said that he knew only one Leopold, and that was the cat from the cartoon, so let the members of this order not bother us anymore.
The crisis of the USSR and the current state of affairs
The theory of interdependence developed by academician Trofim Lysenko played an important role in developing a strategy for dealing with vampires in the USSR. According to this theory, when exchanging blood, a vampire borrows something from the consciousness of its partner, feeding on its ideas. This means that each vampire who agreed to work for the benefit of a bright future could be assigned an ideologically sound curator from among the old communists so that the blood bonds established by the vampire with those who believed in the triumph of Lenin's ideas would be an additional means of control - similar to jokes like "he got so drunk on the blood of the Komsomol members that he ran to a clean-up day."
It is unclear how true this theory was. Most of the old-school political officers still had an Iron Will and were immune to the enchanting effect of blood bonds. On the other hand, any smart vampire could start feigning loyalty to the political officer, after which his comrades were sure that "the Soviet doctrine enslaved the vile nit of capitalism!" Observing such a Masquerade in Soviet times was very profitable.
Because in addition to the blood ties with the political officer-curator, it was possible to influence a vampire in other ways, much simpler and more familiar to the NKVD. If he had a family/lover/loved ones, it was possible to explain what would happen to them if he turned against the Soviet power; to prove that, if necessary, the vampire could be caught and destroyed by showing him a couple of videos of the death of those vamps who did not agree.
During the period of stagnation, "when the blood ties built on true faith weakened," the vamps slowly began to move up, and now they controlled their curators. At the same time, a group of so-called "old men" remained in command posts, who had previously worked in cahoots with the System. The ineffectiveness of the Politburo during the Andropov and especially Chernenko years probably meant that at that time the vampires reached the corridors of power and, instead of leading the country forward, enjoyed life and partied to the fullest, spending the people's money.
With the beginning of perestroika, the vampire population increased sharply due to returning emigrants or "young" vampires who had become established abroad and, in part, European or American Cainites, for whom Russia with its lawlessness at that time turned out to be a kind of "pasture". But the number and influence of Cainites increased especially strongly after the events of 1991-1993 (the version that the First President of Russia was a ghoul, and that his strange survival rate was explained by this, has so far been neither confirmed nor refuted). Be that as it may, unlike the revolution of 1917, the later events were carried out not without the direct influence of the Camarilla, which was indirectly reflected in the widespread legends about the anti-Russian Masonic conspiracy.
However, now the situation has begun to change. There is unverified information that, given the weakening of the Camarilla's position in the West and the withdrawal of the Gangrel from there, an attempt is being made on Russian territory to create a new regional Alliance under the provisional name "DERZHAVA" (note - state in Old Russian and other East Slavic languages. Today it is used for poetic coloring), uniting representatives of the Ventrue, Gangrel and Old Clan Tzimisce and aimed at least at governing the region independently, limiting the influence of the "era of globalization". They want to make Russia not only a superpower again, but also a zone independent of both the Sabbat and excessive dictate from outside.
Thus, the vamp community of Russia is partly affected by the struggle of generations, and there is no force among the vampires that completely determines the policy in the CIS. Three groups can be distinguished: youth, old people and businessmen.
Youth, although this group should also include several of their Sirs, who moved here for the convenience of doing business and greater lawlessness. Numerous (most of the new Russian vampires are quite young regardless of their generation and have recently been formed) and wild, but do not have a single leadership center. As a rule, they have good connections in business circles, supporting the Democratic Choice of Russia in politics as the main organizers of universal human values according to the American model. In an atmosphere of relative impunity, they behave almost like the Sabbath and in many ways share its approaches to mortals as suckers, and Russia as just a field for their own aggrandizement. Does not see the old, considers businessmen idiots.
Old. Those who have been hiding for a hundred years or are used to living on the edges of society, hopelessly behind the times and are not taken into account. They tend to lie low and wait, gritting their teeth. Those who are used to participating in the Department's activities and have retained the remnants of the "patriotic injection" work well with the Soviet-Russian bureaucracy, have connections among the 16th Department of the KGB. Most are members of "Derzhava" and support the ruling party and the current president. As a rule, they are older and of a higher generation, since the creation of Children under the Consensus was not encouraged or required additional approval from the curator. They are somewhat shocked by the new order, they are afraid of young people and businessmen, but if the opportunity arises, they can stab you financially and literally from around the corner.
Businessmen are Western vampires, mostly thrown out of their hometowns for sins or lost intrigues and forced to leave their homes - losers or European anarchs, who, unlike the American ones, until recently had nowhere to run. Somewhat clueless, do not understand local realities, but have connections abroad, including among the Sirs, respected throughout the vamp community, and usually get a job driving materials to the West to ensure an easy life for themselves. Seeing young people untrained in the Traditions, they try to organize them into a local branch of the Camarilla, before they are recruited by the Sabbat, whose direct influence in Russia is still minimal (the young outlaws do not care about them either). They either know little about the old ones, or are afraid, or think that their time has passed. They either know nothing about the Department and the Consensus, considering it no different from the security forces known to them, or consider it a force that can be controlled and directed against violators of the Traditions or the natural enemies of vampires.
What is happening to the Hunters at the present stage.
The "Yeltsin counterrevolution", during which the Cainites regained their lost positions, naturally caused significant damage to the Hunters. The 16th Department was repeatedly abolished, and formally is still in the process of reorganization, which, however, does not prevent its employees from acting in emergency situations. In addition, in any case, the times of lawlessness of the Hunters have sunk into oblivion, and even those groups that are assigned to the security forces act semi-legally.
In all fairness, the Department was saved from complete defeat by its normal attitude towards vampires (those who were on rations were released, but retained some affection for its employees - it was just that now they directed their actions, and not vice versa, as before) and its broad specialization - the vampires in power needed strength to fight the Werewolves, the Sabbath, etc. Naturally, the Masquerade is observed, and not all of its employees know that the Department is sometimes "directed."
Naturally, the main military actions are currently taking place between the Department and the young vampires who do not want to live by the Consensus. It is precisely because of their lawlessness and constant violations of the Masquerade that representatives of other groups continue to allow the Department to live. In addition, from the point of view of the Department personnel who have preserved their principles, the Young are also a type of "enemies of the people" or "agents of influence" of their overseas Sirs, for whom they work, "helping to sell out the country." They, in turn, are seeking its complete liquidation, but due to weaker connections in power compared to the old men, they can only weaken it with bureaucratic reorganizations or exposures in the controlled press of the "insidious plans of the State Security."
The Department's relationship with the old men is still based on further adherence to the principles of the Consensus and in some places resembles the relationship between the MUR and the thieves in law during the time of Lev Sheinin - in a critical situation, a Department employee may well call the Prince and, relying on patriotism, demand that he sort out a particular situation or not oppose the actions of the Chekists. In response, the Prince, as a rule, does not name his charges, preferring to solve problems himself, but willingly shares information about representatives of other groups.
True, the monopoly on operational activities was broken, and under the guise of various Protestant missions or humanitarian offices, branches of the corresponding Western services operate in Russia, mainly engaged in analytics and provision of mobile combat groups arriving from abroad.
Currently, all practicing Hunters can be divided into the following groups:
The Department itself as a state structure, possessing the entire spectrum of features described in the section dedicated to it. The limitations are that the bar of requirements is still high and not every RS can be an employee of the department, that is, a career officer of state security.
"Private" - consist largely of that layer of employees of the 16th department, who could not withstand the reorganization and quit, now engaged in private consulting or opening security firms that also save from supernatural influence, combining the classic private security company with the establishment of protection from the evil eye, damage or vampire. They continue to use the information resource of the Department and those achievements of special equipment that were in their hands at the time of leaving. The small number of carriers of "Faith in Science" is compensated by the involvement of various people practicing paranormal abilities, mainly experts in folk magic such as "lapel". Some of these firms specialize only in killing monsters, but are specialists in a broader profile, which is why they have the nickname "ghost hunters". It is possible that many private security companies have protection in the person of one or another vampire (usually a representative of the Old Ones), who directs their actions. This is their most serious limitation.
"Partisans" - this term is used by the Department employees in relation to those groups that formed spontaneously as a response to the lawlessness of the Young. As a rule, these are those who have personal scores to settle with vampires and first began to avenge their loved ones, and then fight evil in general. Most of them did not undergo preliminary special training, but among them there is a fairly high percentage of carriers of the True (Christian) faith, as if acquired in the fight against the creatures of the night. The downside is that they are classic adventurers with a minimum of legal protection. This group also includes some of the Department employees who, after the change in power, are trying to do something as a semi-partisan group of loners, fundamentally not wanting to cooperate with the vampires in any form. The department continues to keep in touch with them and often supplies them with information, acting through their hands where, for some reason, their own are tied up.
"The Fools" - a group of employees, mainly from the economic department, broke away during the next reorganization-abolition and, considering themselves the only heirs of the department, founded the so-called Institute of Applied Exophysics. The department turns a blind eye to their activities, as if leaving them with less significant problems, especially since they do not so much fight evil spirits as they oppose the proliferating non-traditional religious associations like Scientologists and allow serious specialists not to be distracted by minor problems. They are distinguished not only by the greatest carelessness and weak knowledge of intelligence work, but also by the widest selection of employees, or rather - the minimum of requirements, but they continue to consider themselves the coolest.
As for the Russian Orthodox Church, it has not yet formed a special unit to fight evil spirits, preferring, according to tradition, to count on the help of the state. It is possible that individual representatives of the Church maintain contacts with the "partisans" and have even organized several groups, but this is of an amateur nature. Moreover, the interests of the "church operatives" are largely directed not so much against the undead vampires, but against Satanists or other sectarians.
Results, or briefly about what each of the "Russian" clans represents
Brujah - most of them now, oddly enough, are not of European, but of Caucasian nationality. By the way, there is a non-zero option that Caucasians form a slightly different bloodline - a variant of Brujah of Asian origin, who instead of Celerity have Fortitude (life under the sun, you know), and now the "dzhigits" are trying to become the dominant line, which is partly reflected in the showdowns of criminal groups. The offspring of Brujah at the beginning of the century most likely left the country with Trotsky or were destroyed in the purges. Among the European anarchs who arrived in Russia, there are also a large number of representatives of this clan, but their disorganization and much more pronounced individuality play against them - they cannot create a united front in order to resist the dzhigits.
Malkavians - there are quite a lot of them too, partly due to the efforts of the notorious Doctor Nosov, who had a habit of giving Embrace to "clinical specimens", but they are all quite young. I can't imagine Malkavians who sat out the entire Stalin era in Soviet psychiatric hospitals. Now there are both maniacs and informals among them. Insanity as a Discipline is less common than in Europe and is found only in two or three Sires. The rest have either Dominate or Charm instead.
Gangrel - continue to live in rural areas and have Transformation, Obfuscation and Fortitude as a certain mixture of Urban and Classic. Probably, this is still the most common type, at least outside the capital regions, beyond which they occupy the ecological niche of Nosferatu quite well. Almost all of them were Embraced before perestroika and support the State. The bestiality of many manifests itself not only in the imitation of a wolf - a bear and a lynx are no less common.
Nosferatu - Among them, the largest number of those who managed to survive, but were unable to adapt to the twentieth century, not to mention the twenty-first, and the invisible influence of these elders largely fetters the clan - a sufficient part of them still has not come out of hiding. Those who are known, live mainly in large cities, where there is a metro or complex underground communications, or disguise themselves as homeless people. Although they are still the main source of rumors, their ability to sit on more modern media is somewhat reduced compared to the standard setting.
Toreador - at the moment, they are one of the most numerous clans in large cities due to the fashion for gothic among bohemian youth. They are supposedly responsible for the propaganda of vampire aesthetics, but the level of their perversion is often close to their antitribu, and they are guided not so much by high art, as by heavy metal or postmodernism. Older aesthetes are more likely to be found among businessmen.
Tremere - there are not many of them, and they are mostly young people who were formed on the wave of interest in the occult and secret knowledge that began in the 90s. Chapels have been established in all major cities, but their development of Russia is only just beginning and is proceeding with difficulty due to the opposition of traditional enemies - Tzimisce.
Ventrue - The struggle of generations is acute in this clan - the old people feel the obligation to protect Russia - their investment, if not their home, and the young people strive to grab their piece of the pie, not particularly caring that, moreover, a large part of the pie will be lost irretrievably. The old people try to keep the clan pure and give formation only to representatives of noble families, most of whom live in the estates returned to them and have influence not so much in business, like the young, as in the administration of the cities where they live. The young have included in their ranks a sufficient number of modern yuppies, who have a poor understanding of clan principles.
Old Clan Tzimisce - formation is given rarely, but mainly to statists, as if continuing to act within the framework of the Consensus and nurturing personnel. The branch that owns Variability is treated extremely negatively. They are still found more often in the provinces, but retain a certain influence in the capital. Most of them own the Koldunic line of the "native land", which is why they are invulnerable even to Tremere on their native territory.
Assamites - After the split in the clan, connected with the return of the Ancients, some Assamites fled to Russia, rather than throw themselves at the mercy of the Camarilla or the Sabbat. They hide their origins and keep a low profile, not interfering in the lives of mortals more than they need to feed and ensure their existence. Some are said to have operated in Chechnya, although the "wolf cult" there can also be explained by the presence of the Garou.
Ravnos - it should not be forgotten that the clan is "nationally oriented". However, there are probably more representatives of various branches of the Gypsies in Russia than in the West. Those Ravnos that are present in Russia now either have serious power, being Gypsy barons of a very old school, or arrived along with the rest of the youth after the almost complete self-destruction of the clan outside the CIS, when the remaining ones discovered that the enemies decided to destroy them at the moment when they were weakest. Most local Cainites have Presence or even Auspex instead of Chimerstry, earning money through traditional fortune telling or seduction in the spirit of "give me a gild pen, dear."
Sabbat - although the approach of many young people is close to it, organized Sabbat structures are even rarer in Russia than Tremere, and, as a rule, consist of businessmen and their descendants. This is mainly due to the peculiarity of the original ritual - very few of the new Russian vampires want to obey someone and dig themselves out of the grave. In terms of clan distribution, these are mainly antitribu, and not Lasombra or Tzimisce-symbiotes, which are found in the Baltics, Moldova or Western Ukraine.
Caitiffs - there are quite a lot of them, mostly accidentally bitten or created on the fly. Most pretend to be Brujah, helping the Slavs to extinguish the horsemen, or maneuver between the young and old. There are few wandering groups of anarchs.
Representatives of other clans or bloodlines are practically not found on Russian territory, except perhaps a few among businessmen.
What does the average neonate know about all of the above? Of course, most young RS vampires were formed quite recently, during the years of perestroika and subsequent Yeltsinism. Those who are under the control of the old ones are more up to date with events, while the young ones like to regale young Cainites with alternative versions like the one that throughout the Soviet Union Russia was the fiefdom of the Sabbat, and only now the Camarilla is gradually regaining its positions.
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