Will there be nuclear conflict? Will Russia win the Ukraine offensive? Will my son survive?
Because the Kremlin presses forward with its army intervention within the pro-Western nation, increasingly Russians are turning to astrologers.
In Russia’s second metropolis of Saint Petersburg, bespectacled Elena Korolyova receives shoppers in her condominium, the place two cats prowl between piles of books.
“Folks wish to know what’s going to grow to be of Russia, reduce off from the remainder of world,” the 63-year-old advised AFP.
Astrologers, psychics and mediums have for years been standard in Russia, and notably turbulent years have seen demand for his or her companies improve.
Because the nation reels from a barrage of unprecedented sanctions over Ukraine, increasingly Russians are turning to astrology as they peer into the longer term.
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Korolyova, a grey-haired philologist by coaching who rose to fame within the former imperial capital by means of phrase of mouth, seeks to reassure her shoppers.
She predicts that Moscow won’t solely survive the financial storm, but in addition emerge victorious.
“The worldwide cataclysm will intensify in September, however Russia will come out of it steady and affluent,” she mentioned.
Korolyova prices 5,000 rubles ($90) per session and says — with out desirous to reveal any numbers — that since President Vladimir Putin despatched troops into Ukraine on February 24 requests from shoppers have elevated.
Within the first week of the battle, the variety of searches for “astrologer” greater than doubled on Russia’s predominant search engine Yandex — from 42,900 on February 19 to 95,000 on March 5, in accordance with the corporate’s key phrase statistics.
POLITICAL ASTROLOGY
In Moscow, one other outstanding astrologer, Konstantin Daragan, who made a reputation for himself by claiming to have predicted the coronavirus pandemic, additionally says Russia will win on the bottom in Ukraine and in its conflict with the West.
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“Russia will grow to be the centre of the world after the battle,” he mentioned on social media just lately.
Initially from Ukraine’s jap area of Donbas that the Russian military has been looking for to beat, the aeronautical engineer turned astrologer claims to have suggested ministers, bankers and even members of Ukraine’s secret companies previously.
Having left for Moscow after pro-Western authorities got here to energy in Kyiv in 2014, he helps the Russian army intervention, even when his hometown of Lysychansk has been ravaged by combating.
For him, too, enterprise is booming.
His “Faculty of Classical Astrology” doubled its pupil numbers since Putin launched the Ukraine intervention, now counting round 200 in Moscow.
STAR WARS
Sociologist Alexei Levinson of the unbiased Levada analysis centre mentioned that an try and learn the celebs is a manner of creating sense of actuality for a lot of “confused” Russians.
“Confronted with a universe that has collapsed, some favor to take stars as guides somewhat than their leaders,” he mentioned.
“Astrology at the moment is a sort of psychotherapy or new faith.”
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Anna Markus, one in all Daragan’s college students in her 50s, mentioned she appears to be like to the celebs for “logic in occasions on Earth”.
“Russia is designated as the one wrongdoer of the battle, however it’s apparent {that a} third nation is the true wrongdoer,” she advised AFP.
She has a star chart that she claims proves the USA is responsible.
Over the border in battered Ukraine, the celebs, predictably, present the alternative.
Astrologer Vlad Ross, who’s standard in Ukrainian media, says that Putin is “gravely sick” and “won’t survive previous March 2023”.
“Saturn is the signal of Russia towards Uranus, the signal of Ukraine. Our victory is imminent,” assured one other star Ukrainian astrologer, Angela Pearl, in a video considered greater than 1,000,000 instances since mid-Might.
Determined Ukrainians are turning to astrologers for an indication that their family members on the entrance will survive or in the event that they should flee advancing Russian troops.
Ukrainians wish to know “if nuclear conflict will occur, if they need to go away their nation, if their family members are at risk”, astrologer Olena Umanets advised AFP.
“Russia will explode in March 2023,” predicted the 38-year-old former musician, who fled Ukraine for Switzerland.
Her $100 on-line session reassured one consumer, a 46-year-old tv producer in Kyiv named Kristina, nervous about her husband who’s combating on the frontline.
“My husband simply known as me. He thanks God for having survived the evening,” she wrote to her astrologer in June.
“Thanks for having inspired me to hope for him, it relieved me to share this accountability with the celebs.”