Elena Koroleva, known only by word of mouth in St. Petersburg, predicts success in Moscow as she welcomes clients to her apartment.
“People want to know what will happen to Russia, isolated from the rest of the world” by Western sanctions after the attack against Ukraine, the 63-year-old philosopher told AFP.
“World catastrophe will be pronounced in September, but Russia will emerge stable and prosperous,” guarantees the astrologer, who charges five thousand rubles for the consultation, about 75 euros.
Since the Russian invasion began on February 24, requests for advice have increased, he says.
Political Astrology
In Moscow, Konstantin Targan, famous for predicting “a respiratory epidemic” before Covid-19, bluntly declared that “Russia will become the center of the world” after the conflict.
He says that Russia will never be an international superpower as the West wants it to be.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will “break down in tears” and “be the last ruler of Ukraine with the current borders,” the 49-year-old said flatly in a group on the social network Telegram.
Originally from the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, which the Russian military is trying to seize, the astrologer-turned-aeronautical engineer claims to have advised Ukrainian ministers, bankers and members of the secret services.
This Moscow-based “political astrologer” supports Russian action after the pro-Western government came to Kiev in 2014, despite the fighting that destroyed his city of Lysizansk.
With the attack, their profiles on social networks were flooded with questions: “Will Moscow be bombed? Will the Baltic countries panic? How will Poland react?”.
And its “School of Classical Astrology” has doubled its number of students since February 24. Currently 200 students are studying.
Alexey Levinson, a sociologist at the independent Russian Levada Center, believes that “for many confused Russians and Ukrainians,” believing in the stars is a way to make sense of new realities.
“(In the face of their) collapsed universe, some prefer to take the stars as their guide rather than their leaders,” he summed up.
“Astrology today is a form of psychotherapy or a new religion,” he added.
Meanwhile, astrologer Vlad Roz, ubiquitous in the Ukrainian press, often declares that “severely ill” Vladimir “Putin will not be alive in March 2023.”
“With Saturn in the sign of Russia and Uranus in the sign of Ukraine, our victory is imminent,” promises Ukrainian astrologer Angela Perl in a video from mid-May that has been viewed more than a million times.
In addition to the geopolitical implications, people in Ukraine also look to astrologers to see if a loved one will survive the war or flee in the face of advancing Russian troops.
*By Marina LAPENKOVA/AFP
