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• current timeframe: 1922, Paris, France
• born September 1901 in Saint Petersburg, Russia
• was sent to live with her grandmother in Poland before the outbreak of the Revolution
• has lost both her parents and an older brother in the riots, has a sister who lives alone in Saint Petersburg and is trying to get to her grandmother's manor house outside Warsaw • has trained for the ballet at the Imperial Ballet School and was predicted a shining career, then the Great War and the Revolution followed
• after she came to Poland at age 14, she has received private ballet lessons from former prima ballerina, Irina Smirnova
• when Smirnova relocated to Paris to teach, Polina made arrangements to follow
• after living in Paris for a year, Smirnova recommends Polina to the director of the Ballets Russes, Diaghilev
• after a brief audition, she is offered a contract with the company and promised the career of a star
• lives to dance, but only because everything else she lived for is gone or missing from her
• backtagging is good
• no ooc triggers or warnings
• warning for possible period-appropriate homophobia, sexism etc. will be avoided in casual interaction and will never be sprung on people
• open to timey-whimey jamjar interaction, historical scenarios and, to some degree, straight-up modern au
• f/f pref for shipping, but i'm also here for all the gen interaction and especially collegiality and friendship!
• pm for contact, cest/cet time zone
Born a year after the turn of the century, with impending change simmering like a stew in Russian society, Polina was the youngest of three children to the Zaytsev family, her twin older brother and sister, Oleg and Olga, pampering her and spoiling her rotten as she grew up, since she was six years younger than them. Her family had Polish heritage on her father's side, while her mother was of the Russian nobility and they were well-off, her mother especially admired in high society. Since her father now had a son to take over his import business and a daughter to marry off to rich allies, Polina was left pretty much up to her own devices and enjoyed a free, happy childhood. When she decided she wanted to learn ballet, he had her try out for the Imperial Ballet School and she got in at first attempt. Because her father is a minor prince, they'd say, but she'd prove them wrong. She had a gift for dancing.