Nikolai Sharapov

Nikolai Petrovich Sharapov (Russ. Николай Петрович Шарапов) was an early settler of Lovia and a Founding Father in the informal sense.

Biography
Sharapov was born in the Russian city of Pskov in 1827. His father had been a Decembrist and had been exiled to Siberia, leaving his mother penniless. He had a difficult childhood and grew up angry at the authorities who he felt had deprived him of a good life. When he grew up, he was told that Siberia was a 'new land' where a man could be equal with his fellow men. On arriving in Irkutsk, however, he found that the same aristocracy had grown there. He continued to travel east, looking for his ideal of a land where all could be equal, until he eventually came to Alaska. Shortly after his arrival the territory was sold to America, but Sharapov remained there for some time. In 1880, the news reached Alaska of a group of islands to the south of Alaska which had been discovered by a man named Arthur Noble. Sharapov decided that this was the place that he could finally make a name for himself. He chartered a ship and a number of Russians who were willing to travel south with him, and they made their way to Lovia. They made land on the 20th of June, 1880, on Philosopher's Island.

Sharapov built a settlement there, which he named Sharapovgrad. After a while they made contact with the Founding Fathers further to the south, who asked them to join their country and sweaar allegiance to King Arthur I. Sharapov vitriolically refused and started a habit of firing at Lovian ships which passed the island. The Lovians quickly decided to avoid the fiery Russian as much as possible.

In 1901, Sharapov, by then senile, declared himself Tsar of Seven. He lived two years longer. On his 76th birthday, as he was celebrating with a huge feast, he heard Americans had founded a settlement in his realm, on American Island to the west. He leapt up with a curse and ran around madly ordering war. However the shock and sudden exercise after a large meal proved too much for him and he suddenly keeled over and died.

He was succeeded by his son, Vladimir Sharapov, who renounced the title of Tsar and renamed the settlement Novosevensk.