User:Rustem Pasha

I am an owner of Demirhanlı Devleti which I started to map in march 2017.

I started to be interested in mapping when I got an old but quite detailed map of Warsaw... Well, the map wasn't very old because it was published in 80s of previous century which means it was nearly two times older than me in that time. I was very young these days and I learned how to read letters from this map. I spent months with the map, enough to learn all of the bus and tram routes and then I said that I should go further and start to draw own maps. I don't remember it well but I know I drew a lot of ugly cities which sooner or later went to thrash.

Through the years I tried to improve my maps but I couldn't get above certain level because I'm not much talented in manual skills. This disability prevent me from creating any bigger project than a single city and in my teen-age I lost interest in mapping. These years I've read many books mostly fantasy-oriented and finally I started to write my own stories and novels. It was my first attempt at creating entire worlds and countries but all of them were placed in middle ages or reneissance climate.

When I began higher education my creativity mostly dropped down. I read less, wrote less and dreamed less but because I'vde studied civil engineering I got into maps again. They were concentrated in something which we can call micromapping (geodesic maps have scale varying from 1:500 to 1:5000) and I got a bit allergic at mapping details. After first year I get much more free time but I started to write articles on Polish Uncyclopedia where I achieved the rank of bureaucrat and I was de facto leader for nearly a year. Hard times, bad times...

The change in my attitude to mapping came when I went to work. I always wanted to work in projecting roads but the market verified my expectations and I found employment in geotechnics. It's a good job too but a little bit dissatisfactory for me so my interest in mapping came again. I tried to draw a new fictional world but I felt it wasn't what I wanted to do and then I found OGF. At first sight I didn't want to join (because I've mostly forgotten how to speak English which I didn't use since my school years etc.) but after searching the Wiki I decided to give it a try.

In the meantime I started to interest in Ottoman history and culture (because of rising wave of Turkish series in Polish TV) and even started to learn Turkish but due to lack of mood to learning I stopped at basics some time ago. But the basics and the knowledge of Ottoman history allowed me to make a decision to work with Demirhanlı Devleti which tries to be an anwer to the question "What if Ottoman Empire survive to present times?" Those who are interested in Ottoman history probably will probably find a parallel between real and fictional events in both countries. Also when I was making decision I knew I should map in a language that I understand at least a bit but there were plenty of English speaking countries and Polish and German were also present. So the only alternative was Turkish which wasn't used in OGF yet and a conlang. While I had a finished conlang from earlier years I asked myself "Who will understand this?" and then I choose Turkish. Probably the conlang will appear in the OGF when (if?) I will start mapping a second country.

During my holiday in 2018 I decided to take a vacation project on OGF - the Kuyak Duchy in the Pretanic Faction State thanks to Bhj. It's a biggest work I did in the foreign territory since I got into OGF.

I have also other ideas but even one country is enough to spent years on OGF so probably they will never be presented here.