Russia  

Ivan Braginski, ロシア, イヴァン・ブラギンスキ

The largest nation in the world by area, Russia’s a tall character with an intimidating air about him. He comes off as kind and sweet, but is actually off his rocker, one could say. His hair is light blonde and his eyes are violet, but were colored blue in earlier artwork. In the anime adaptation, his hair was colored beige. Belarus and Ukraine are his sisters. Ukraine basically raised him and Belarus, and was the one that gave him his scarf (which is beige in the manga, but was colored pink in the anime). Belarus is madly in love with him, and wants to marry him. Usually when he thinks about either of them, he becomes very depressed afterwards. In the past, Russia had control over the Baltic Brothers (Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia). The three worked in his house and were the subjects of his torment. He especially picked on Latvia, whom he teased because of his height. Russia also showed particular interest in Lithuania, even forcing him to accompany him on a trip when Lithuania said that he had a date with Belarus that day. As for Russia’s southern neighbor, China, he is very suspicious of Russia and afraid of him. Russia constantly says to China that they should become one, but China thinks otherwise. On a few occasions, Russia has stalked him, even dressing up in a panda suit to do so once. His personality is rather twisted, though he seems to think that it’s perfectly normal. He appears pure-hearted, sweet, and innocent, but he possesses a “childlike” cruelty. Despite his cheerful smile, Russia can be described, more or less, as insane. Because he suffers from harsh winters every year (personified as “General Winter”), he has come to hate the snow and wishes to live in a warm place with sunflowers one day. He loves vodka, so much to the point where he shouted “VODKA!” while jumping out of a plane, wearing no parachute. Russia has been noted to chant “kolkolkol” when angry as a threat, which was confirmed as being a reference to kolkhoz (collective farming in the former Soviet Union). His last name “Braginsky” is often romanized as “Braginski” in fandom. The more correct spelling would be “Braginsky” since last names ending with “-ski” are usually of Polish origin, while last names ending in “-sky” are usually of Russian origin.