Thirty birds flew off to search for their king Semurg and then, after all kinds of different tests and trials, at the very end they learned that the word “Semurg” means “thirty birds”. I just thought, maybe the entire Generation… maybe it’s all of us together? And now we’re all on the attack.
— Victor Pelevin, Homo Zapiens
What’s a Tzar Fenix?
It might be another name for the Firebird from Russian folklore (literally “zhar-ptitsa” or king bird) and its analogs in other cultures like the Semurg, Phoenix, or Thunderbird.
It might be an elaborate anagram of the author’s surname:
S T E F A N S K I
T S A F E N I K S
T Z A R F E N I X
Or, it might be a handle created from some StarCraft characters that got used around the internet for some decades, and it was easier to slightly re-brand it than to come up with something completely original.
Ultimately, it combines a lot of the topics I like to think and write about: myths, games, and thinking about thinking. So, if you like to read about those topics, please stick around! And maybe we can come up with some new meanings together.