Zhabdar

Zhabdar (Russian: Жабдар) is a deformed human-mutant with hypnotic and telepathic powers. He is the leader of the human-mutant society at Molodezhnaya. He appears in the Dark Tunnels novel.

Background
During the nuclear war, Zhabdar took refuge at Molodezhnaya Station and settled there with a group of people. However, due to the shallow depth of the station and the very high levels of radiation on the surface above - which inevitably seeped into the station - a large number of the station's population began to die off due to radiation-induced diseases, deformities, and illnesses. Although Zhabdar was able to survive the hardships that him and his people endured, like everyone else at Molodezhnaya, he had suffered serious injuries and deformities to his body.

After having spent so much of his life in complete darkness, not able to see anything, Zhabdar noted that he had developed the ability to "look deep within" himself and has a spiritual and telepathic connection to the Moscow Metro and life itself. Eventually, Zhabdar became the leader of the human-mutant society at Molodezhnaya and helped his people survive and endure the harsh conditions for more than a decade. Although Zhabdar lives in constant agony due to the injuries and deformities that he had received from the radiation and can easily end his life suffering by stopping his heartbeat at any second, he refuses to do so because he knows that by ending his life, he will risk condemning all of his people to extinction.

Physiology
Due to the radiation, Zhabdar's flesh became almost transparent, his legs had withered away, and he became unable to tolerate any light. In order to sleep, he had to blindfold his eyes and remain confined to a special isolated room at Molodezhnaya Station in complete darkness because of his intolerance to light. As a result of his legs withering away by the radiation, he has been forced to crawl around on the floor "like a snake" for over half of his life. At some point he named himself "Zhabdar",  which was originally the name of a mythological creature; a snake that guarded the kingdom of the dead, which a group of people believed in a long time ago. Although he had suffered serious injuries from the radiation, as a result, he was also able to develop hypnotic, psychic, and telepathic abilities that allowed him to see and know about things that were beyond the understanding or comprehension of ordinary people.

Dark Tunnels
In Dark Tunnels, the main protagonist, Anatoliy Tomski, and his companions visit Molodezhnaya station where Tomski is taken to speak alone with Zhabdar. During their conversation, Zhabdar is able to "see within" Anatoliy Tomski and get a deeper understanding of the kind of person he truly is and what his mission entails. Zhabdar gives Tomski critical advice regarding his beliefs, convictions, and ultimately his mission. Zhabdar also tells Tomski about the secret passage, an old highway that runs parallel to the Filyovskaya Line, which Tomski and his companions can take from Molodezhnaya in order to get to the wider metro and continue with their mission.

Before they finish their conversation, Zhabdar asks Tomski to bring in one of his companions. Later, he's told by a trader from Hanza that Tomski and his other companion, Krab, were taken hostage while escaping from the Satanists at Timiryazevskaya. Zhabdar uses his hypnotic mind control powers to subdue the Hanza trader which makes him an ally of Tomski and his other companion Krab for a limited period of time. Zhabdar also asks Tomski that when him and his companions encounter some feral mutants along the secret highway passage, that they do not fire their weapons upon them because the mutants do not mean any harm and are just scared. Finally, before leaving, Zhabdar asks Tomski to come close to him and shakes his hand as a farewell.

Trivia

 * According to the Ruble-2 novel, Zhabdar has a son named Arthur. It's unknown if he ever developed any of his father's highly evolved abilities.

Жабдар