Raisa was born in 1901, in St. Petersburg, Russia. Her father, a boyar (Russian nobility), was married to a woman of his class, but Delphina, a young Gypsy woman passing through, had caught his eye, and he took her in as a "servant" before her departure. As Raisa was born to this Gypsy serving woman, she too became part of the manor's sizable staff of servants. Although her life was hard, Raisa adapted well, and often snuck out of her room at night to watch the dancing when the boyar hosted parties.
By 1917, when Czar Nicholas II abdicated his throne, Russia was rapidly becoming an unsafe place for the nobility to live. The family with which Raisa and Delphina lived was forced to flee the country. The serving staff was not considered a vital part of the family, and many, including Raisa and Delphina, were left behind. With the nobles gone, the house soon fell into disrepair, and the servants left, looking for whatever work they could find. Raisa and Delphina returned to the kumpania (band/tribe) into which Delphina had been born, the wandering Gypsies of Eastern Europe. Among the Gypsies, Raisa learned to dance, and proved to be fairly good at it. She also learned of amria (curses), draba (talismans) and other Gypsy magic. Although she was never able to use them herself, she did well learning the words and motions, and was able to convince peasants and other non-Gypsies of her "powers."
On July 16, 1918, a night that had (to her) no real significance, Raisa awoke from a terrifying dream. She did not understand it at first, but she had seen members of a family slaughtered around her. She said nothing at first, but as the nightmare recurred, she became withdrawn and frightened. Finally she went to one of the wise women of their kumpania. Upon telling the woman of her dream, the wise woman called her marhime (tainted). She was driven from the kumpania and sent to wander Russia alone.
Still the nightmares plagued her. Wherever she went, she tried to find someone who understood what she saw when she slept. Most people simply closed their doors to her, and the few that listened believed she was crazy. She eventually learned to stop speaking of the nightmares, and was able to find a family on the outskirts of Paris who would take her in as a boarder. She went to work in the city and trudged back home at night. After a few weeks of this, the nightmares stopped. She did not dream at all, for the little sleep she got barely kept her going.
Eventually Raisa found a place to stay in town, and set up shop as a purveyor of "magical goods." This gave her free time to learn the language and watch dancers perform at night. She snuck into ballets on occasion, and learned quite a bit by watching. More often than not, however, she found her way to a small enclave of Russian immigrants. Here she found dancers who knew the old Russian dances, a few Gypsy dances, and other ethnic dances.
It was also here that she learned the significance of her nightmares. The other Russians told her of the fate of the Romanovs, the night of her first nightmare, and particularly about the legends of the Princess Anastasia, who might still be alive. And then Raisa concocted a plan.
In February of 1920, a woman calling herself Anna Anderson had attempted suicide by jumping off a bridge. She survived, and on questioning, she claimed that she was the Princess Anastasia. Many believed her, but many others doubted her. Anastasia's grandmother, Maria Fedorovna of Denmark, the mother of Nicholas II, wanted very much to see her beloved granddaughter alive. Many girls had been presented to the elderly woman, but she had dismissed them all as phonies. Raisa decided that she could do better. She worked out a terribly sad story of the years since her escape, worked out "witnesses" to help her story along, and went only after truly assuring herself that she could pull this off. The amazing part was, it worked.
Anastasia's grandmother had fallen under the influence of a dashing Toreador ancilla, Nikolai, early in her sojourn in Paris. While he would have been happy to see grandmother and granddaughter reunited, he was fairly certain that Anastasia had died in Russia. He helped the old woman to look for her granddaughter mainly because of the excellent opportunities it gave him to feed on beautiful young women. When Raisa presented herself to them, Nikolai was astounded. Unlike the other girls, this one knew how dangerous Russia had been for the nobility. Unlike the other girls, this one actually showed some noble upbringing. And unlike the other girls, this one was rather talented. Nikolai, of course, saw through her lie, but was willing to pull the wool over Grandmother's eyes, especially if it benefited him.
Raisa would have been swept up into the high society world of Paris of the late 1920s. However, her "reappearance" was never publicly announced because Maria Fedorovna died October 13th, 1928, but not before willing her remaining wealth to Raisa. Nikolai, who had watched her closely for the few weeks she was there, decided that now was the time to act. Without a word, he Embraced Raisa into Clan Toreador, and began to teach her many new things.
Raisa had become enamored of her Sire, without actually realizing what he was. After her Embrace, she realized that they had been playing a similar game: each used a person's natural willingness to believe what he or she wanted to hear to their personal advantage. Nikolai instructed her in the ways of the clan, being sure to emphasize that although she had wonderful talents of deception, the talent that the clan wanted to see was her art, her dancing. So Raisa resolved to work on both.
As the years passed, the situation in Europe once again seemed threatening, so Raisa and Nikolai emigrated to America in 1934. On their way across the ocean, rough seas caused Raisa to fall overboard. Although she was quickly rescued from the freezing ocean water, she was unbelievably cold from that day forward. Even the simple act of pumping blood into her limbs to warm them became a chore, so she generally settled for allowing her flesh to remain cold.
Raisa and Nikolai settled in a small Russian enclave near St. Louis, Missouri. They existed there peaceably and happily for a number of years, interacting with the Kindred of St. Louis on occasion, but generally keeping to themselves, and using mortals for their own purposes. In 1972, they moved to Dallas, Texas, having decided that staying in any one place for too long could endanger the Masquerade.
The Kindred of Dallas were more welcoming to Raisa, but a bit less so to Nikolai. Raisa never really noticed that fact, despite the fact that she was lavished with attention and responsibility, while Nikolai remained in the background. In 1990, Raisa was asked by the Prince of Dallas to take a young Toreador, Rikki "Spider" Rollins, who had escaped from the Sabbat under her accounting. Pleased with the responsibility, she agreed to do so. Rikki remains with her to this day.
In 1995, Nikolai suddenly disappeared. Raisa is not sure what happened to him, but hopes that her beloved Sire is still around. Dallas without Nikolai was hardly the same, and so she began slowly making plans to move elsewhere. Eventually, she and Rikki started North, and soon ended up in Carbondale, Illinois, early in the year 2000. She has no idea what she sees in this place, but it seemed like home, so she stayed.
The past few weeks have been particularly traumatic for Raisa. On August 14, 2000, the Russian Orthodox Church granted sainthood to Czar Nicholas II, his wife, and children. Although Raisa had never been particularly religious, she still considered herself a member of that Church. The night of August 14th, when Raisa gazed upon the cross she had brought with her from Russia, she felt a sense of overwhelming dread. She managed to cover it with a scrap of fabric, but has not been able to bring herself to move it. Her only explanation for this unusual phenomenon is that the strange tie between her nightmares and the royal family has taken on a new significance (malevolent to Raisa) in light of their sainting.
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