Paul Goble
Staunton, Jan. 7 – Like people in many societies, a certain percentage of Russians have turned to fortune tellers, tarot card readers and those who case horoscopes both face-to-face and via social media to try to get inside information about their lives. Typically, they want to know about their love lives and financial possibilities.
But since the start of the Russian war in Ukraine, two practitioners of these arts say, Russians have begun asking other questions as well, including but not limited to the course of the war, the possibilities of avoiding military service, emigration, and even the date when Vladimir Putin will die, according to Holod media (holod.media/2023/01/06/problems-of-2022/).
The editors acknowledge that their investigation of this most unscientific of the arts is hardly scientific; but they suggest that this shift reflects a broader change in Russian attitudes, hopes and fears and thus represents one more barometer of public opinion in a country whose government severely restricts the ability of the population to express their feelings.
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