The Russian Brony

Commentator

Location: Yakutsk, Sakha Republic, Russian Federation

Joined Jan 29, 2012 at 08:15PM EST

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About

I think I've been here long enough to fill this in.

My name is Dmitry, and I have had quite the past couple of years. I was a Tank Commander in the Russian military 19th Motor Rifle Division of the 58th Army, Southern military district. When the Second Chechen war flared up I was called into service along with the rest of my crew.

Chechnya changed me in a lot of ways, some good and some bad. For the first 6 months things we're easy for us tankers, the Air Force had bombed the Chechens into hiding with their fighters and ballistic missiles so we we're reduced to hunting insurgents along the mountain paths.

Some of the soldiers acted like devils. They drank, murdered, pillaged and raped all before them as acts of revenge against the Chechens I suppose.

One day while out patroling our band of 100 men gets ambushed by around 30 Chechens, they inflicted heavy casualties upon our groups, 15 people to be exact.

Many of those people were good friends. I cried and cried and cried until I simply didn't have the strength to shed tears anymore. So when we got an assignment to shell the village they came from the next morning, my guns never ran silent.

After the heavy combat of the war ended I "retired" so to speak to my current home of Yakutsk. I make a nice amount of money between the combination of my work as a mechanic on heavy equipment, my military pension and good investments.

I did have a wife, but sadly she passed away on October 23, 2009 due to Cancer and left me a single father with a 1 year old daughter. I believe I've done my best to raise my child in teaching her to always be courteous (within reason), appreciate the small things in life, and do not let one negative Nancy ruin your day.

My daughter is mostly responsible for getting me into MLP. She is a large fan of the series and toys and I admittedly realized how wonderful of a series it was before even knowing of the Brony sensation. While looking for episodes on the internet for her I learned of the whole fandom and it's sometimes odd and quirky members who day after day churn out wonderful art, stories and merchandise for others of their kind.

You can believe what you want about what I have wrote but you can be damn well sure that My Little Pony has had a positive impact on me in the past couple of months and taken away a lot of the dread that was hanging on my shoulders.

Every weekend me and Svetlana crowd the couch to catch the latest episode My Little Pony: Дружба – это чудо as it is called here in Russia (I prefer the English version but don't tell her that!) And while I sit there with my only blood relative left in the country I truly believe that friendship is genuinely, magic.