Hetalia RP bio: Oleksandr "Sasha" Braginsky (Nation)

*Full Name:* Oleksandr "Sasha" Braginsky
*Nation:* Ukraine
*Region:* Eastern Europe
*Classification:* Country
*Age (how old they appear to be):* 26
*Gender:* Male
*Birthday/National Day:* August 24
*Height:* 188cm (6'2")
*Hair Colour:* Silver-grey
*Eye Colour:* Blue
*Language[s]:* Ukrainian, Russian, English

*Appearance:* Two primary outfits he tends to switch between. One is a tan coat and pants similar to Ivan (his Himaruya-canon outfit). The other is blue farming overalls with a yellow shirt underneath. In both cases, he is always wearing his signature white scarf. His hair is straight, a bit messy, and medium length. He wears a pair of feather earrings (blue and yellow like his flag) in each ear, and his right arm is tattooed in a traditional Ukrainian vyshyvanka embroidery style.

*Personality:* Sasha is a nation with an identity conflict. A Russian territory for centuries, he only recently gained his independence in 1991, and struggles to be recognized as an independent nation by most of the world's people. Even half of his own citizens still believe themselves Russian, and it doesn't help that his default appearance strongly resembles that of his younger brother, Ivan. To remedy this, he has taken to trying out different appearances and clothes from his nation-friends, searching for an identity that distances himself from that territorial association. That said, he still loves his brother and other siblings, and would do almost anything for them.

Sasha is very outgoing, always seeking to make friends and spend time with others. He's usually one of the first to respond "da" to a group event invite, and is usually far more interested in enjoying the fun than trying to direct it himself. In addition to his two native languages and fluency in English, he likes to learn about the languages of others and tries to speak a bit of each of them. By default, he tends to slip Russian and Ukrainian words into his speech out of habit, and while his accent is easily distinguishable as slavic, he speaks clearly and is easily understood.

Perhaps his most noticeable personality trait is his optimism. In Sasha's mind, things will almost always turn out okay in the end, no matter how "oi yoi yoi" they currently are. On the other hand, he's a realist who knows when it's time to give up and haul ass out of a situation. But if something seems salvageable, you can bet he'll make an attempt to fix it. This applies both to situations, and to relationships; if he's wronged or been wronged by someone, he'll do everything he can to make things right. Even in war situations, Sasha will never hold a grudge, not even to those that conquer him.

He's also a bit of a foodie, wanting to try the local cuisine of every country he visits. That said, he's kind of pizdec in the kitchen himself, to the point that he can only make two things successfully: blin (slavic pancakes) and kompot (a stewed fruit drink). Aside from standard nation work, he likes to farm, and visit various places in his land. Due to Chernobyl, he has a slight ambient radioactivity, enough to set off a Geiger counter but safe for even humans to be around. He likes to claim that "bananas are more radioactive" than he is.

*Trivia:*

> During the Chernobyl disaster, he was one of the first on the scene, using his nation endurance to rescue as many as he could from the CNPP and surrounding area. He suffered extreme radiation sickness for weeks afterward, not just due to how long he spent there, but the fact that the irradiated land is part of him.
> Partially out of habit and partially due to his people being divided over the Russia thing, he tends to use Russian and Ukrainian interchangeably, in spite of his insistence that he should not do that. His chat handle, surzhykKorektor, is a joke about this (Surzhyk is the name of the Rus/Ukr hybrid language, and literaly translates "mixed beans").
> He still feels bad about the way he treated Ivan when he abandoned him at the end of the Soviet Union. Sasha never intended to hurt his brother, only escape *Ivan's boss*. Even though, officially, he can no longer have anything to do with Russia anymore, he's always willing to spend family time with Ivan and Anya, and make sure they're doing okay.
> Russia isn't the only one whose territory he's been. In the late 1500s, he was conquered by Poland and put under Polish administration. It actually didn't work out too bad, as his new ruler helped build many new cities and roads, making the territory of Ukraine stronger. Even in modern times, Sasha doesn't fear "becoming Warsaw" as much as he probably should, since he's "been through it already"...
> Partially out of a desire to be on good terms with his Russian siblings again, and partially due to his EU application being rejected, Sasha dreams of forming an Eastern European Union, where the former Soviet nations can work together and be treated as equal allies. He's only mentioned this to a few people though, mainly due to fear of being seen as "trying to revive the Soviet days" and of being laughed out of his own embassy.
> Despite his claims to have an alcohol tolerance "second only to Ivan himself", Sasha's actually a *lightweight* by slavic nation standards. He can still out-drink most non-slavic nations, but bring out the vodka and rakija and hoo boy. (He's actually sixth in Europe for per-capita alcohol consumption, behind not only Belarus and Russia, but even *Moldova* can out-drink the Ukrainian in theory...)
> Being the "father figure" of the Braginsky family after Kievan Rus died hasn't been without its consequences. Those parental instincts have been with him so long, whenever he sees a child (nation or human) get hurt, he's compelled to rush over and help them, even if it's not his place to. He's... trying to break the habit, since he's gotten in trouble more than a few times for it.
> On the bottom of Sasha's left foot is a tattoo reading "Зроблено в Україні, c.1200" (Made in Ukraine, circa 1200). He doesn't remember getting it, it seems to have always been there.
> He has a dog, a Siberian Husky named Blitz, who he got from a friend who raises rescue dogs. Blitz has a sprained hip, and spends most of the time wandering around Sasha's house.