Arestovich’s earnings revealed – MK

Aleksey Arestovich, who retired, admitted that he worked as an adviser to the head of the Zelensky Office on a voluntary basis and for free. But then what does the main propagandist of official Kyiv live on? The ex-advisor, being a poor man according to official declarations, established a profitable business in psychological training. For a hefty price tag, Internet users willingly buy his seminars on personal growth and fairy tale therapy, and Arestovich himself is revered as an enlightened guru and philosopher.

Judging by declarations from open sources, Mr. Arestovich’s official income is rather modest. The ex-adviser to the head of Zelensky’s Office himself, in an interview, claimed that he worked in public positions for free and freelance, and seminars bring him earnings, up to 300 thousand hryvnias per month (a little more than 11 thousand US dollars at the exchange rate before the start of the SVO).

Officially, he declared in 2019 (there are no more recent documents in the public domain yet) a salary in the military unit A0105 of Ukroboronprom of 55,372 hryvnias ($2,200 at the then exchange rate) and business income of 1,354,000 hryvnias (54,000 rubles). dollars). In addition, Aleksey Arestovich owned a land plot of 4.7 hectares in the Vinnitsa region and a Honda CRV car. The former chief speaker of Kyiv formally does not have urban real estate.

It seems that the financial ace in Arestovich’s sleeve, which allowed him to work in the Zelensky Office without a salary, is those very seminars. Their ex-adviser leads in the framework of the so-called Apeiron school of thought. The office has a website, a channel in Telegram and pages in social networks.

The site says that the organization is the author’s school of Alexei Arestovich. But there are no statutory documents of the office on the Web: by whom and when it was created is a mystery. But this awkward fact does not prevent success.

So, what Arestovich-coach offers: modules with classes on self-realization as a person, seminars on the art of speaking, writing, reading, thinking, making decisions, profiling. As well as a set of seminars with tricky names from the series “Holy Wound 2. Chaos Theory”, “The Power of Intention” and “Inner Honesty” in two parts. The price for one lesson is from 1300 to 1500 hryvnias (from 35 to 40 US dollars at the current exchange rate). There are also cheaper ones — 800 hryvnias ($21), but these seminars are, of course, not conducted by Arestovich himself.

The names of the trainings are seasoned with a vigorous combination of images of ancient Greek philosophers and tempting descriptions: “The module will teach you to manage your own life and be yourself, without bending under the influence of other people and circumstances”, “the course will show you how you can build a picture of the world” – and that’s it. in such a spirit.

An interesting detail: there is no information anywhere that Alexei Arestovich ever studied to be a psychologist or philosopher. It is known that he is a translator by education. Arestovich also studied at the school of the odious Moscow esotericist and astrologer Absalom Podvodny.

Professional psychologists and psychotherapists admit that they themselves study the phenomenon of “Arestovich – personal growth coach” with great interest. But his activities are not called anything other than infogypsy.

— Arestovich uses a set of stamps in his trainings. He uses the triggers of a person’s everyday life. Intuitively, he was built into the social request. Ukrainian society is under extreme stress, so people willingly go to his trainings. For one webinar, he collects 6-7 thousand viewers. However, everything he says is props and false psychotherapy.

The meaning of the work of a professional psychotherapist is to start the process of mutual work with the client. And here it turns out that while Arestovich speaks, the audience is fine. But then he stopped talking, and the person again plunged into depression, – explains social psychologist Sergei Markelov.

Arseniy Postnikov, founder of the ANO Center for Psychological Safety, notes that during seminars Arestovich mixes a lot of theoretical concepts from psychology and esotericism. None of this has been scientifically proven, but the author of the trainings himself convinces his audience of the opposite.

— For example, Arestovich says that Jung is scientifically proven. But this is not true, Jung has claims that it is possible to communicate with the dead and about the collective unconscious. It is impossible to prove this scientifically.

In general, if you see the phrases “personal development” or “birth trauma” on a site with trainings, this should alert you. These are infogypsy markers.

The concept of personality is still in question in science. The only approach in psychology that really has an evidence base is CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy. – Approx. “MK”). It is based, among other things, on the fact that imitation is the basis of behavior change. If you have a confident person around you, you will also become more confident. This mechanism is used in the army, the police and the Ministry of Emergency Situations. In this regard, any charlatan, if he is confident in himself, can help,” says Postnikov.

Hardly anyone will undertake to dispute the fact that Alexei Arestovich is confident in himself. Psychologists believe that it is precisely for this that a large audience of fans loves him and pays for dubious trainings in the hope of getting the coveted insight or at least reducing the level of anxiety.

Here are some reviews about the lessons of life from Arestovich that are replete with the Internet (the spelling and punctuation of the author is preserved): “Against the background of the scale of your personality, today I feel like a millet ball lying alone in a huge field of wheat,” wrote one of the channel subscribers with trainings on YouTube. There are also those who strive to pin up a home-grown guru. “Arestovich can even sell snow to a polar bear,” wrote a user with the pseudonym Alik Mamedov.

“In order to increase sales of snow to polar bears, the ex-advisor sometimes goes into all serious trouble and poses as a real guru,” Sergey Markelov complains. – Arestovich does not understand the basic structure of the human psyche. He picked up from books and consciously simplifies everything.

For example, if a listener tells him that he is already 35 years old and cannot start a family, he can answer: “Yes, you don’t want to start one! When you want, the family will appear. And at the same time, either seriously or for fun, he compares himself with the great philosophers: “Aristotle, Arestovich … We are standing side by side!”