Will there be nuclear warfare? Will Russia win the Ukraine offensive? Will my son continue to exist?
Because the Kremlin presses forward with its army intervention within the pro-Western nation, increasingly Russians are turning to astrologers.
In Russia’s 2d town of Saint Petersburg, bespectacled Elena Korolyova receives purchasers in her condo, the place two cats prowl between piles of books.
“Other people need to know what is going to transform of Russia, bring to an end from the remainder of international,” the 63-year-old advised AFP.
Astrologers, psychics and mediums have for years been in style in Russia, and specifically turbulent years have observed call for for his or her services and products building up.
As the rustic reels from a barrage of remarkable sanctions over Ukraine, increasingly Russians are turning to astrology as they peer into the long run.
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Korolyova, a grey-haired philologist via coaching who rose to status within the former imperial capital via phrase of mouth, seeks to reassure her purchasers.
She predicts that Moscow won’t most effective continue to exist the commercial typhoon, but additionally emerge victorious.
“The worldwide cataclysm will accentuate in September, however Russia will pop out of it strong and wealthy,” she mentioned.
Korolyova fees 5,000 rubles ($90) in line with session and says — with out in need of to expose any numbers — that since President Vladimir Putin despatched troops into Ukraine on February 24 requests from purchasers have larger.
Within the first week of the war, the choice of searches for “astrologer” greater than doubled on Russia’s major seek engine Yandex — from 42,900 on February 19 to 95,000 on March 5, in step with the corporate’s key phrase statistics.
POLITICAL ASTROLOGY
In Moscow, some other distinguished astrologer, Konstantin Daragan, who made a reputation for himself via claiming to have predicted the coronavirus pandemic, additionally says Russia will win at the flooring in Ukraine and in its conflict with the West.
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“Russia will transform the centre of the sector after the war,” he mentioned on social media not too long ago.
Firstly from Ukraine’s japanese area of Donbas that the Russian military has been in search of to overcome, the aeronautical engineer grew to become astrologer claims to have recommended ministers, bankers or even contributors of Ukraine’s secret services and products prior to now.
Having left for Moscow after pro-Western government got here to energy in Kyiv in 2014, he helps the Russian army intervention, although his native land of Lysychansk has been ravaged via combating.
For him, too, industry is booming.
His “Faculty of Classical Astrology” doubled its scholar numbers since Putin introduced the Ukraine intervention, now counting round 200 in Moscow.
STAR WARS
Sociologist Alexei Levinson of the impartial Levada analysis centre mentioned that an try to learn the celebs is some way of constructing sense of truth for lots of “at a loss for words” Russians.
“Confronted with a universe that has collapsed, some like to take stars as guides moderately than their leaders,” he mentioned.
“Astrology lately is a type of psychotherapy or new faith.”
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Anna Markus, one in all Daragan’s scholars in her 50s, mentioned she appears to be like to the celebs for “common sense in occasions on Earth”.
“Russia is designated as the one offender of the war, however it’s evident {that a} 3rd nation is the actual offender,” she advised AFP.
She has a celeb chart that she claims proves america is responsible.
Over the border in battered Ukraine, the celebs, predictably, display the other.
Astrologer Vlad Ross, who’s in style in Ukrainian media, says that Putin is “gravely unwell” and “won’t continue to exist previous March 2023”.
“Saturn is the signal of Russia in opposition to Uranus, the signal of Ukraine. Our victory is coming near near,” confident some other famous person 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 at the entrance will continue to exist or if they’re going to have to escape advancing Russian troops.
Ukrainians need to know “if nuclear warfare will occur, in the event that they must 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 manufacturer in Kyiv named Kristina, nervous about her husband who’s combating at the frontline.
“My husband simply known as me. He thank you God for having survived the night time,” she wrote to her astrologer in June.
“Thanks for having inspired me to wish for him, it relieved me to proportion this duty with the celebs.”
