Nikhil Chandavarkar

Braving the Western Winds Nikhil Chandavarkar

Set in an alternative history line, Braving the Western Winds, follows the adventures of Pavel Arsenievich Stolbetsin, the prime minister of Roxolana, an enormous empire that occupies the eastern half of northern Eurasia. After surviving an assassin's bullet fired at him during an opera intermission, Stolbetsin goes on to become the greatest statesman his country has ever known, enjoying the full confidence of the Tsar, whose throne he is able to save from communist revolutionaries plotting to topple him with help from Western bankers and businessmen, who covet easy access to Roxolana's natural resources, which the nationalistic Tsar and prime minister are denying them. Stretching over the first half of the twentieth century including through two global wars, Braving the Western Winds echoes many of the open and covert geopolitical conflicts that our world faces to this day, including secret interventions by big powers in other countries, stage-managed events with plausible deniability, demonization and targeted assassinations of non-compliant foreign leaders, and cynical disinformation through fake news. Stolbetsin braves the gales from abroad through his devotion to duty and ascetic self-sacrifice, serving as an example to all nationalistic statesmen of today.