Teatime with a Christian cult leader
How I met (and escaped) a woman whose ideas predicted the rise of Russian fascism
I’m going to tell you a story about the evolution of Russian fascism. It starts, surprisingly enough, in a gloomy apartment building on the outskirts of the Ukrainian city of Kyiv, the place of my birth. The basement of that building was flooded in the summer of 2003, and the older couple whom I visited frequently over my break would ask me to close the front door of their apartment quickly — clouds of whining mosquitoes rose from the basement and infested the stairwell.
The husband, I’ll call him Dmitry, was a physical therapist. As for the wife, whom I’ll call Valeria, she was a cult leader. Only I didn’t know that at the time.
It was the summer after freshman year of college in the States, and I had gone to Kyiv to visit family. Because I was having back problems — I think it was tension, after an academically and emotionally challenging first year as an undergrad — a relative of mine suggested physical therapy with Dmitry, who, she said, had helped her. I loved and trusted this relative and had no idea just what kind of sick game I was being drawn into.
Dmitry and Valeria were originally from Russia. Their son was dead and their daughters didn’t have much contact with them (which should have been a red flag for little old me). Valeria was said to be a “healer” and a “seer” — meaning she could tell what kind of physical problems a person had just by glancing at them, allegedly.
I first met Valeria when I was doing an intake with Dmitry, and she correctly identified some of the injuries I’d had as a child, including one I’d sustained in a sledding accident. She also said, “I can tell you’re on your period, that can exacerbate lower back pain, of course.” It was a little bit spooky, but I was 19 and intrigued.
I signed up to do weekly physical therapy at Dmitry’s home office turned therapy studio. The price was ridiculously low compared to prices in the States, and he seemed friendly. I’d wake up early on my assigned days and take a long marshrutka ride to their unpleasant neighborhood where trash blew through the bus stops and the buildings sagged. To be honest, I probably would’ve quit after a few weeks, but I didn’t want to disappoint my rather delicate relative, and the physical therapy sessions seemed to be helping.
After these sessions, Dmitry asked me to relax and not hop back onto public transport right away, which was how I found myself drinking green tea with his wife Valeria and chatting.
Things grew weird slowly. Every time we met, Valeria would bring up my physical problems, shake her head, and tell me stories of Dmitry’s other clients, who had similar problems and met terrible ends. She had a singsong, almost hypnotic way of talking. At first, she didn’t seem like she was trying to scare me, but the conversations, or, rather, Valeria’s monologues, began to grow very personal.
She told me my wardrobe was un-feminine and I should stop wearing pants so much. She asked me if I knew that I could get AIDS even if I was with a guy who used a condom. She began implying and then outright saying that I seemed troubled, and that the physical therapy would not work without “spiritual therapy.”
Soon enough, Valeria let me in on a “secret” — she was actually my relative’s “spiritual mother,” and had “saved her life” many times. Did I know that my relative had been suicidal after her divorce? Of course I didn’t, I was such a flighty young woman, childish, even, Valeria said, batting her eyelashes indulgently. But my relative was allegedly very happy now! And look, I was making her even happier by visiting Valeria and Dmitry, her “spiritual parents”!
My back began to feel much better, Dmitry really was a talented physical therapist who understood pain. Mentally speaking, though, I was beginning to grow more stressed. The conversations with Valeria were turning darker.
“You’re not a virgin, I can tell,” she said in her melodious, cheerful voice one morning as we drank tea. “It’s a shame, because now you will never be able to attract a good man. Good men look for virgins, you know. You were damaged as a child, which is why you’ve been turned into a slut, but God allowed it for a reason. Maybe we can explore what that reason was.”
Valeria looked for people’s weaknesses and exploited them effortlessly. At 19 years of age, I was a sensitive young woman, conflicted and confused about myself. I craved physical and emotional intimacy, but I didn’t feel entirely in control of my body. Male attention fascinated and spooked me in equal measure. Valeria read me easily enough, and knew how to push my buttons. I wanted to be good, and her goal was to make me feel bad.
When she wasn’t slowly convincing me that I was damaged goods, Valeria spoke of her hatred of Ukraine and her devotion to the Russian Orthodox Church. She despised this country that her husband and her had ended up in shortly before the fall of the Soviet Union. She gleefully told me of local political figures whom she had “cursed” and who had quickly “croaked.” Her fanaticism fascinated me in the morbid way that most journalists are fascinated by fiery and unhinged people, but it also scared me. This woman had a hold on a relative whom I loved. And she seemed menacing, in spite of her charm.
Valeria believed that Russia was a kind of holy land that will one day reclaim Ukraine. Her political views were bluntly fascist — anyone who interfered in the glorious resurgence of the Russian Empire, and anyone who was glad to have the USSR gone, deserved to be purged. She said that Ukraine did not deserve to have its own church and that Ukrainian churches were places where unspeakable evils festered in every corner. She made bizarre statements about American leaders and American culture.
“Curse the Americans for inventing flight,” she said cheerfully one morning. “People are meant to be rooted in one place, it’s what’s best for them, otherwise they get too many ideas in their heads.”
Valeria also frequently brought up disasters, including natural disasters and car wrecks/airplane crashes/train wrecks as evidence that God was looking to purge haughty people who were filled with pride from the earth. She said that tragedies were fantastic news, because they scared other people into believing in God’s wrath. Valeria’s God was pissed off all the time and thirsted for blood like a grinning Nosferatu.
Valeria sat in her chair, stirring her tea, speaking lovingly of a vengeful God who had “cleansed” the Earth in the past and would do so again the way other people speak about an energetic new puppy that may have destroyed a shoe or two but is otherwise adorable. She said that people suffering from war and famine needed to suffer in order to atone for their wickedness. She brought up death frequently and appeared to worship it. She also delighted in physical pain. If she spotted a bruise on my shin, she’d smile, and say something like, “When your legs are hurt, it’s a good thing, it’s God reminding you that you are walking the wrong way.” It was completely crazy, and it was also seductive, because it presented a vision of the world where everything, even a tiny bruise, fit into a simple pattern.
“More people need to die in order for others to understand that the Russian Orthodox Church is the only way to salvation,” she said, her face lit up with a hypnotic smile.
It was interesting how she seamlessly combined her love of the atheist USSR with a vision of Christian Orthodox supremacy. At the time, I didn’t know that this doublethink was typical of people nostalgic for the Soviet past. I was just baffled and intrigued by it.
The trick to her lectures over steaming cups of tea was that she delivered them sweetly. She was not a fire and brimstone preacher, she was just an older lady who positioned herself as a savior of lost souls. She smiled frequently. She practically cooed over me. I had no idea that these were brainwashing techniques.
Suddenly, our chats weren’t enough. Valeria started calling me. A lot. She’d call our home (we still had a landline, as everyone else did), and if I wasn’t there or didn’t pick up, she’d call my relatives. She was constantly seeking me out. She was also discussing me with my relatives, dropping hints that I was a secret “addict” and a “disturbed nymphomaniac,” that I was a wayward young woman, never mind my good grades, and that I needed help and didn’t want it.
My relationship with the female relative who was under Valeria’s spell became strained as the result. I found out that Valeria had many “spiritual children” and began to slowly grasp that she, in fact, had organized a cult. It needed more members, especially people like my parents, who were better off financially than most of her acolytes. That’s why I was getting physical therapy sessions from her husband at such a good rate.
I felt trapped. A part of me had grown strangely attached to Valeria. I found myself craving her approval. I had no idea how brainwashing or cults worked, what I did know is that I felt stuck. I began to have disturbing nightmares, which included seeing myself put a noose around my own neck. In those nightmares, I was surrounded by a dark and empty universe that was indifferent toward me. There was nothing, just me and the noose. I would wake up gasping in my sunny Kyiv bedroom, sensing that I was in some deep shit.
Things came to a head when, sometime in July of that year, Valeria sat me down for my usual cup of tea and explained that she and her husband agreed that my physical problems were too numerous and needed an intervention.
“You’re not a healthy person, Natalia. Not physically, and certainly not spiritually. You don’t have much of a future. You’re dirty and soiled. What are you going to do with your life? You can’t find a good husband, because you’ve given your virginity, your most precious commodity, away. But because you have a good heart, I think we could find you a solution. A wealthy man could take you as a concubine. It’s easy, you just send a picture of your face first. If he likes it, you can send pictures of your nude body. It would be the perfect arrangement for you. You’d only have to have sex with him once a week, tops. Of course you may not like it, but a good woman isn’t meant to like sex. Any children he sires with you would be well taken care of. Think about it. It’s the best you can do in life, so why not do it?”
I don’t know what I said in return, but what I do know is that I eventually slipped out of that apartment, bounded down the dark stairwell, mosquitoes screaming in my ears, and never went back.
Valeria had miscalculated. Even though I was just 19, I was very well informed about prostitution rings and sex trafficking, and I knew I was in real, physical danger from a woman casually planning the sale of my body as if she was selling a Ford Taurus. The nightmares persisted for a while, but I never visited Valeria again.
She tried to get me back at first. She called my relatives. She called me. She kept calling even when I went back to the States and someone gave her my number.
I spoke to her again just one more time. I tried to be as firm as possible for an impressionable college girl who was brought up to be polite to older people. “I feel unwell after I talk to you. I see myself in my nightmares, putting a noose around my neck. This isn’t right. You’ve said horrible things to me.”
I have never forgotten her next words and how seductive her voice was then, like a dark lullaby. “That’s the devil wrapped around your neck. And one day, he will climb into your heart. You will spend many years trying to find out why your life is terrible. And on the day you turn 60, dear Natalia, you will remember me, your friend, Valeria. And know that everything she told you was correct.”
I wished her well and hung up. I wondered if this was her way of placing a curse on me. I remembered how she had correctly guessed the details of my medical history. Did my relatives tip her off or was she really a seer? It was hard to tell and I was young and confused. I did know that my survival depended on never seeing that woman again.
My relationship with the relative ensnared by Valeria would be strained for years to come. Valeria passed away some time ago, but to this day, I am wary about what personal information I reveal around her former “spiritual children” — because what if they get another, similarly deranged guru?
We did reach an impasse of sorts when Valeria began to reject my relative in favor of new acolytes and “spiritual children.” By then, I was more aware of cult tactics and knew that charismatic cult leaders played games with people — they could withdraw their affections suddenly in order to make victims feel more unmoored and confused, more eager for their so-called love. I pointed this out as gently as I could, over several years, though it sometimes backfired.
When I was in my twenties, I met a Ukrainian priest who’d had his own run-ins with Valeria around town. “That woman is very sick,” he told me. He revealed that Valeria was known to certain religious authorities, and that they considered her a charismatic cult leader. He also revealed that she’d had a history of horrific abuse in her own family back in Russia which led her down a dark path. He told me that I had gotten off relatively lightly.
“Do you think she cursed me? Could that be real?” I blurted out. He was a man of the cloth, and I still remembered the hypnotic nature of her words and her voice. The priest smiled, patted my hand, and asked “Why would you give her that power?”
There are two reasons why I needed to tell you this story:
1) It’s important to recognize cults for what they are. The brainwashing always starts slowly at first. Current members help recruit unsuspecting new members.
2) Valeria’s ideas about the world, about women, the West, the “cleansing” nature of mass murder and catastrophe, and Russian supremacy are not on the fringes in the Russian Federation. Twenty years ago, these were views you encountered on religious forums from women with crazy eyes and guys with bits of food stuck in their beards, but they are firmly in the Russian mainstream now. This constant talk about raining nuclear fire from Russia’s top propagandists? The Russian Orthodox Church aiding and abetting genocide in Ukraine? Decades ago, Valeria was sweetly murmuring in her kitchen about the things that Russia’s top officials and clergy, the worst fascist villains, are saying and doing openly. This isn’t an accident, and this church-sanctioned fascism has been building in strength for some time.
I am also telling you this story because I know this darkness can be dispelled. When I think of summer 2003 in Kyiv, I don’t think much of Valeria. I think about fishing trips with my father, long dinners in our kitchen as the bees buzzed on the grapevine outside, the songs we sang on our road trips. I think about going dancing with my cousins, and kissing hot guys under the streetlights as night encroached onto day. What reverberates in my memory is not Valeria’s sweetly poisonous voice, it’s songs and clinking beer glasses, trains in the night, my aunt’s piano music from down the hall. As such, I think about life, not death.
I think about how I was able to stand up to someone who was older, more experienced, and more cunning, because I knew, in the deepest reaches of my heart, that worshipping death and hatred and destruction is fucking insane.
My life hasn’t been the easiest, but I’m grateful for its freedoms and the adventures I’ve had. When I think about fascism, I picture it as bearing down upon you like a large carnivore, trapping you in its teeth. For some people, that can be a kind of false comfort. Freedom is scary and the jaws feel solid. But they are, at the end of the day, a horrible trap, as bad as anything I would have experienced if I decided to follow Valeria’s advice and become some wealthy psycho’s concubine.
Valeria’s dark vision for Ukraine, and for the world, will not succeed, because there are enough of us who’d rather live, and die, as free people. I know that, even when it’s hard. I’ve worked on forgiving that woman, but I will not forget.
Thank you for sharing. You have shown even back then in 2003 in Kyiv (as now all Ukrainians) that love, freedom and life are stronger than fascist death cults.