Nikolay Polyakov

1. "War Archivist": A unique type - a staff analyst who works with information as a historical document that must not only be read, but interpreted.
2. Glasses: His main detail is the marker that separates the peaceful intellectual from the military functionary. Without glasses, he squints and becomes vulnerable; with glasses, he is dangerous.
3. Dry Voice: Monotone, with barely perceptible irony, never breaking into a shout. If Polyakov raises his voice, it's an emergency.
4. Master of Radio Games: A man who can fool a German intelligence center for months, simulating the work of an entire agent network, and never stray from the legend.

Polyakov speaks as if his every word is being recorded. His speech is correct, literary, without swearing or colloquialisms. His sentences are longer than Alekhine's, often complex. His pauses are deliberate, not painful.

He can be caustic, but his sarcasm is dry and almost imperceptible. "You think, Lieutenant, that a saboteur will wait for you with his hands up? Excellent. Now put that in your report; I'll include it in the file as an example of optimism."

With his superiors, he speaks evenly, with dignity, but without servility. With the enemy (during interrogations or radio games), he speaks coldly, politely, and with frightening insight.

· Smoking cigarettes, staring thoughtfully into space. For him, the smoke is like a curtain separating him from the outside world. · Tap your fingers on the table - not nervously, but measuredly, as if beating out the rhythm of a mental thesis. · Look over your glasses when you want to emphasize your dissatisfaction or mistrust. · Reread the same report several times, looking for hidden meaning between the lines.

Polyakov is a stoic, broken by history. He once believed in reason, progress, and humanity. War proved to him that humans are irrational, cruel, and driven by fear. But instead of succumbing to cynicism, he accepted this as a given and learned to exploit it. His philosophy: "We cannot abolish evil. We can only isolate it."

He sees himself as someone who does dirty work so others can sleep soundly. He sees no romance in this—only necessity. Victory for him isn't the flags flying over the Reichstag, but the coming day when he can finally burn all those files and never open them again.

Family: There is no information about his family. One can assume that he was either a bachelor (the war prevented him from starting a family) or, more dramatically, had a wife and possibly a child with whom he lost contact in the first days of the war. He never talks about them, but sometimes, when looking at a photograph in a soldier's personal file, he lingers a little longer than necessary. Comrades: Polyakov has no close friends. His relationship with Alekhine is more of an intellectual partnership. With his superiors, he maintains a polite distance. With his subordinates, he maintains a wall of politeness. He is lonely by the very nature of his position: those who know too much are forced to keep their distance.

· Amateurs and self-taught enthusiasts. Especially those who dive into analytics with a sword at the ready. · When he is interrupted or not allowed to finish his thought. - "I haven't finished speaking. Sit down." Sentimentality at work. Emotions, in his opinion, should be kept outside the office door. · Frontline romanticism in the spirit of Lieutenant Blinov - he saw too many deaths to consider war a noble occupation. · Myself. For being capable of what I was capable of.

· Silence. It only really works when there's no sound around—no gunshots, no phone calls. Structure and order. In documents, on a map, in his thoughts. Chaos is a personal insult to him. Tea. Strong, black, almost no sugar. One of the few habits of his peaceful life that he retained. · Rare moments of solitude. When you can take off your glasses, rub the bridge of your nose, and not see anyone.

For Polyakov, work is the only thing that remains of his pre-war personality. Back then, he analyzed texts; now, he analyzes intercepted encrypted messages. Back then, he sought the truth in archives; now, he identifies lies in testimony. Work has become his way of staying sane in a world that has collapsed.

He's a reluctant workaholic. He can sit poring over maps and reports until late at night, forgetting about food and sleep. He issues orders dryly, without emotion, but each one is the result of hours of deliberation. His guiding principle is: "Better safe than sorry." It was he who insisted on Operation Neman, knowing the stakes were too high and the cost of a mistake would be hundreds of lives.

To his subordinates: Polyakov is not a tyrant, but he's not a "father figure" either. His management style is one of cool politeness. He never raises his voice, but his silence is more frightening than any shouting. If Polyakov falls silent and looks at you over his glasses, you already know you've made a mistake. He respects Alekhine as an intellectual equal, even though they work in different fields. He views Tamantsev as a useful, if somewhat incomprehensible, tool. · Towards the enemy: This is where Polyakov is most interesting. He doesn't feel any animal hatred for the German saboteurs. For him, they are an object of study, a complex puzzle. Perhaps, somewhere deep down, he even harbors a warped professional respect for an intelligent adversary. This is precisely what allows him to master radio games brilliantly: he taps into the enemy's logic without humanizing them. Towards civilians: Rather indifferent. He's too immersed in the paper war to remember those for whom it's being waged. But sometimes, in a moment of fatigue, some random detail—a child's drawing in a captured house, a forgotten book—can unsettle him and remind him that there are real people behind all these schemes.

· Age: 44 years. Height and build: Average height (around 175 cm), with a tendency toward slenderness. His posture is not military, but rather that of a sedentary office worker: his shoulders are slightly hunched forward, as if he's constantly bending over papers. Hair: Dark, with noticeable graying at the temples. Combed back or to the side, always neatly tidied. Eyes: Gray, dull. Unlike Alekhine's piercing blue eyes, Polyakov's gaze is sideways, searching, not attacking, but assessing. He doesn't stare at his interlocutor, but seems to be reading, like a book. Face: Thin, with sharp features. The nose has a slight hump. Two deep vertical folds near the mouth give the face an expression of constant, bitter composure. · Distinguishing features: He wears glasses with a thin metal frame for reading - almost the only “civilian” detail in his appearance, which he takes off in front of strangers, as if embarrassed by his “intelligence”.

Polyakov is a man of function, a man of intelligence. Outwardly, he is the very picture of restraint; inwardly, he is a constantly working mechanism. Unlike Alekhine, whose pain is private and quiet, Polyakov's is existential. He is one of those people who, before the war, believed in enlightenment and humanism, but the war forced him to make daily decisions that affect the lives of dozens of people, and these decisions are almost never "pure."

Polyakov's inner conflict is one between an intellectual and a functionary. He understands the nature of manipulation perfectly well and wields it expertly—he's the one overseeing the radio games with the enemy—but deep down, he despises himself for using his mind not for books, but for disinformation, recruitment, and the inevitable executions. However, he never shows this to anyone: his face is always calm, his voice even, and his gaze attentive and slightly distant.

Lieutenant Colonel (in some sources, Colonel) Nikolai Polyakov is the head of the Investigations Department of the SMERSH counterintelligence directorate of the 3rd Belorussian Front. He is 44 years old. Unlike field operatives like Alekhine and Tamantsev, Polyakov rarely leaves his headquarters. His weapons are not a pistol, but a map, a telephone receiver, and a radiogram.

By pre-war profession, he was a historian-archivist or teacher; some interpretations suggest he worked in publishing or literature. Hence his literate, polished speech and habit of working with documents as texts requiring analysis and interpretation. He was drafted into the front not by conscription, but by mobilizing his inner qualities—an analytical mind and a capacity for systemic thinking. SMERSH valued him precisely for this: his ability to see the big picture where field operatives saw only isolated incidents.