Pozrika

Pozrika, officially the Republic of Pozrika (: Позриека Република) is a country in Eastern Artemia. Its borders cover an area of 507,625 square kilometers (195,995 sq mi) and borders Lienzeberg to the north; South Kryzhelovschina, Yarova and Rovsnoska to the east; and Helinika to the south. Pozrika is a landlocked country, although it has coastlines one four large international freshwater lakes to the south and west. About two-thirds of the nation's 6.4 million population live in proximity to these lakes.

Prior to the 18th century, the area that currently composes Pozrika was administered by the Principality of Lučenec dating back to the 11th century in a tenuous alliance with the Toulack nomads and other small desert communities in the west. The principality united with the Vojiskiy Empire in 1765 as result of a royal marriage between itself and the Yarova royal family. It survived as the western-most edge of the Vojiskiy Empire before the outbreak of the Vojiskiy War in 1922 concurrently with the Grand Campaigns. The civil war resulted in the fall of the Vojiskiy Empire. However, Pozrika, being a stronghold for loyalist support during the war, carried the torch of the empire's lineage. When defeat in the remainder of the empire was certain, Vojiskiy military officers stationed in the west seized control of the territory from the princely government, who were thereafter relegated to a ceremonial role. Pozrika survived as the Vojiskiy Remnant, internally referred to as Vojiskiy Pozrika, through the 1920s and 1930s. However, its independence would be challenged in the 1940s.

From 1943, Pozrika was integrated into the United Provinces of Rovsnoska and Zaporizhia (UPRZ) — one of the successor states to the Vojiskiy Empire — at the conclusion of the Białemorze Conflict, becoming a constituent Volkovist republic of that union. The Eastern Artemian nation did not gain its independence and develop into its modern form until 1994 shortly before the Rovski-Zaporizhian Separation in 1998. Today, Pozrika is a newly industrialized state ruled by a nationalist dominant party system. Armed with a resentment of Volkovism and a nostalgia for the days of the Vojiskiy Empire, the nascent state has undergone a significant regime of de-Volkification and cultural re-Yarovification. Since the late 2000s, Pozrika has also been undergoing a large infrastructural and economic development effort. That effort includes massive urbanization, the forced resettlement of remaining Toulack nomads in the new new planned city of Novtrava, sweeping transportation projects, investment in education, and military modernization. Pozrika is broadly considered a in global politics, only capable of rivalling other small states in its immediate vicinity like Lienzeberg. The state is not a part of any of the major, but is it considered to be aligned with the current government of Yarova as well as some Artemian North-South Concordant member states to a lesser extent.

The Great Southern Retreat and Formation
After the fall of Apazov in January 5, 1925 and total capitulation of Imperial forces in Yarova proper, the Imperial Southern Army lost the key cities of Rozhok and Chernoblinsk to the RZRA and Republican forces. In an attempt to stave off the encroaching RZRA armies for enough time to secure a peace treaty with the Republican forces the Southern Army under the command of Korotkin Semyonov set up defensive positions on the Antoria and Frisca rivers. On January 14 after a failed counter attack on Krvnigrad and Rasnaya by the Southern Army and Rovsnoska the imperial forces remaining along with Rovsnoski forces would retreat back to the city of Kvilia and Pozrika in an disorganized mass. The army retreated along the Moslavinan Railway, using the available trains to transport the wounded. They were followed on their heels by the 5th Red Army under the command of Branislav Dević. The Imperial retreat was complicated by numerous mutiny attempts by the demoralized Rovsnoski soldiers, and was further aggravated by the fierce winter. After the series of defeats, the Imperial troops were in a demoralized state, centralized supply was paralyzed, replenishment not received, and the discipline dropped dramatically.

By February 7 a peace deal had been worked out between the Provisional Government of National Revival and Yarovan Republican Front, with Pozrika and parts of modern day Rovsnoska being retained by the Imperial forces. A minor volkovist mutiny of Rovsnoski soldiers would occur only days later, but would be put down by Semyonov's army.

Geography
Pozrika has a very continental geography, characterized by low percipitation and high seasonal variation. Its landscapes are defined by its cold desert, steppes, and steppe-forests. The Eastern Artemian nation makes up the eastern part of the Greater Eastern Vale — a valley that runs from the White Sea in the west to the Karbykan mountains in the east.

The country's most extreme region is the Pozrik Lowlands Desert ecoregion, which covers most of its northwestern region and the Pozrik portion of the Lake Niebo Depression. This region is a cold desert, experiencing hot summers and cold, dry winters. Fauna is varied and flora mostly consists of shrubs and semi-shrubs in this region.

Pozrika's most temperate regions are in the far east and south. The north and northeast are dominated by the Pozrik steppe-forest ecoregion, which acts as a thin transition boundary between the Pozrik steppe to the west and the more densely forested taiga in Pozrika's eastern neighbors. The nation's more temperate south by contrast is mostly included within the Bialmorze steppe, which together create a large complex network of grasslands. These grassland border a thin forest-steppe ecoregion across the Helinikan border, which transitions into Eurybian mixed forests in that country's elevated areas. The Bialmorze steppe is Pozrika's most densely populated area. Due to low percipitation throughout Pozrika's steppes, most agriculture in Pozrik is centralized in the east-to-south continental band and is primarily supported by extensive irrigation feeding from the Gyulol, Czyk and Spede Rivers. In fact, its rivers are most likely Pozrika's most prominent natural features, both sustaining agriculture and connecting it to the White Sea via Lake Bialmorze, Lake Niebo and the Grad River. Pozrik's are highly seasonal, creating floodplains in the spring fed by snow melts are higher elevations.

Climate
Pozrika is afflicted by extreme continentality, being a fair distance from significant bodies of water besides its great lakes. Further, being situated in the lowlands of a valley flanked by multiple mountain ranges, large portions of the country are in a rain shadow. This means Pozrika's climate is dry with relatively low percipitation with high seasonal variation depending on the region.

A large portion of the landscape is dominated by a — constituting the Pozrik Lowlands ecoregion — which grades transitions into a  going southeastward. This area constitutes the Pozrik steppe. The country's north and northeast along its borders with Lienzeberg and South Kryzhelovschina — where the Karbykan mountains and foothills run through Pozrika — features a thin boundary of which transitions into  at higher elevations. In the east, a thin strip of widens heading south to cover the entirety of Pozrika's coast on Lake Bialmorze being this climate. This area is characterized by mild summers and long cold winters.

Military
The Armed Services of Pozrika (Pozrik: Озбройенá служба Позриека) is the unified military of Pozrika, having been founded upon its independence in the late 1990s. It consists of the Pozrik Army, Pozrik Army Air Force, and Pozrik Army Naval Service. As of 2020, the Armed Services consisted of 87,500 active and 310,000 reserve personnel, making it comparable in size to the Lienzek Royal Armed Forces but only 15 percent the size of the Grand Rovsnoski Armed Forces active duty force. Pozrika maintains a mandatory conscription for all adults between the ages of 18 and 30 years old for a period of 24 months for non-university graduates or 18 months for university graduates not working in a field exempt by the federal government. The military overall is administered by the Secretariat of War — a federal ministry — which maintains subordinate offices for individual service branches.

The Pozrik Army is Pozrika's ground warfare branch and is the senior of the Armed Services, with the other branches being subordinate to the Army. The Army Air Force is responsible for the nation's air defense — including a small fleet of fighter aicraft and a larger air defense artillery and missile capability — as well as limited tactical and limited strategic airlift and close air support to Army ground forces. Lastly, the Army Naval Service is essentially a brown-water navy subordinate to the Army, responsible for patrolling and policing the nation's waterways and guarding its maritime borders on the great lakes. As such it is the smallest of the three main branches, and the only branch without subordinate commands. For example, the Army has subbordinate commands for operational heavy artillery and signals, while the Army Air Force has an airlift command.

The Pozrik military inherited much of the culture and equipment of United Provincial People's Army military units stationed in Pozrika prior to independence. However, since the initiation of widespread reforms in the early 2010s, the Secretariat of War has made attempts to distance itself structurally and culturally from the previous UPRZ regime. Still, the majority of its equipment is antequated, although beginning in the early 2010s Pozrika began to import more modern military equipment from friendly powers including Yarova and Tiperyn.

Sports
Soccer is popular, particularly in Pozrika's metropolitan areas that saw heavy cultural influence from the UPRZ over the course of the 20th century. However, in the rural and other un-urbanized areas, horse sports are extremely popular owing to much of the nation's nomadic past.