Dmitry Gordon: producer of a factory of charlatans. PART 1

If hell exists, then in its ninth circle Judas Iscariot will probably be accompanied by Dmitry Gordon. Not because he cloned and advertised occult pharmacists for two decades, but because with their help he deceived and robbed hundreds of thousands of seriously ill people. His “healers” and “contactors” did not hesitate to make money from the grief, pain and despair of the elderly and disabled, selling them false hope, luring out the last savings of the poor. Even if these are not the most serious crimes from the point of view of the Criminal Code, but, undoubtedly, this is the most heinous sin for which you will have to answer – if not in this life, then in the next.

Study, student!

Gordon Dmitry Ilyich was born on October 21, 1967 in Kyiv. His father Ilya Yakovlevich Gordon (a civil engineer) came from Lithuanian (Belarusian) Jews, among whom many Gordons can be found. Since the famous associate of Peter the Great, General Patrick Gordon (of Scottish origin), also bore the same surname, this often saved the Jewish Gordons from attacks by anti-Semites. For Dmitry Gordon himself, his last name in the 90s gave him a certain “Western” image, and he did not talk much about his roots. He publicly called himself a “Ukrainian Jew” later, when it became politically advantageous, especially after the second Maidan.

His mother, Mina Davidovna Gordon, worked as an economist and, apparently, was often too busy, since the grandmother was mainly involved in raising little Dima. Apparently, he should thank her for the fact that he completed the 6th grade program as an external student, jumping straight from 5th to 7th. The real details of this story remained unknown, but external studies in the USSR were a very rare practice. Schoolchildren and students usually took tests and exams for a year missed for some reason, but to take two years as an external student – such cases were exceptional and isolated. Be that as it may, the very fact of being an external student, and the fact that it allowed him to graduate from school and enter a university at the age of 15, gave Gordon the image of a “prodigy.” Therefore, it was unprofitable for him to reveal the secret of this “miracle”.

Not possessing talents in the field of exact sciences, but being interested in music, football, theater and history (at the level of Pikul’s novels), Dmitry Gordon studied at the institute with great difficulty – by his own admission – suffering. But from the second year I became interested in journalism, starting with interviews with my football idols. Thus, he initially chose the “portrait interview” genre, which promises the journalist maximum dividends with a minimum of troubles: in such materials only good things are written about the interview characters, often coordinating questions with them in advance. This is a genre of fan-oriented publications (sports, cinema), glossy magazines, party press and “court” newspapers. In addition, another of Gordon’s tricks was conducting such interviews in the “conversation” version, which was unusual for the Soviet press, which generally preferred strict monologues. One can only wonder where he learned all this from – was it really from his grandmother?

Gordon’s first newspaper was the Lugansk “Molodogvardeets”, then it began to be published in “Evening Kyiv”, “Komsomolskaya Pravda” and other publications. And yet he was not given a deferment until he defended his diploma, but was “pulled” into the army after his third year at the institute. Dmitry Ilyich served for two years in the missile forces (near Leningrad), where his main responsibility was the publication of wall newspapers.

After the army, his continuation of his studies at the institute was rather symbolic in nature. Gordon didn’t just go all-in on journalism, he grabbed the nascent media business by the tail. Therefore, I somehow graduated from the university and allegedly received an assignment to… the newspaper “Evening Kyiv”. Is this from civil engineering?! But he himself claims so, but in reality Gordon simply straightened out his “free travel”, convincingly proving to the administration that in his person the construction industry will not lose anything.

Dmitry Gordon. From Kashpirovsky to Chumak

By the beginning of the 90s, yesterday’s student Dmitry Gordon had already acquired his first car (not just some Lada, but a whole Volga) and his own apartment – and also surprised his colleagues with his expensive imported “outfits”. For a journalist, albeit from Kyiv, even if he personally met the editors of the leading publications of the USSR, this was too cool: you couldn’t buy that much with fees alone, and there was a clear smell of some kind of “cooperation”. But how could interviews with movie and football stars be turned into additional income? Then – practically nothing, unless Gordon was selling calendars with their portraits. But Gordon owed his initial capital and career in general not to football players, but to psychics. It all started with the “Kashpirovsky phenomenon.”

This “phenomenon” might not have happened if the previously unknown psychotherapist Anatoly Kashpirovsky had not been promoted by journalists – among whom was Dmitry Gordon. Moreover, very soon Gordon became his main PR man. According to sources Skelet.Infothe idea to turn the “hypnotist” into a big sensation and make money from it did not belong to Gordon, but to one of his colleagues. However, having seized on this idea (acquaintances noted Gordon’s extreme greed and love of money), he made some efforts and diligence to push his fellow writers away from Kashpirovsky, monopolizing the “rights” of this promising “phenomenon.” This happened even when Kashpirovsky opened his Psychotherapy Center in Kyiv (late 1988), the success of which directly depended on the efforts of journalists who sowed faith in paranormal miracles among the reading masses.

So Kashpirovsky became a star, and Gordon began advertising him – sending ordered articles and interviews to leading publications (the first “paid” materials in the Soviet press). But behind the scenes of history it remained unknown who was the impresario of this show? Who was behind the creation of the Center for Psychotherapy, who then organized all these “mass sessions” in stadiums and appearances on television, who collected money from them and allocated a share to Gordon for advertising?

According to available Skelet.Info information, Joseph Kobzon, who, in turn, was associated with many leaders of the organized crime group, could have been involved in this. That is why Kashpirovsky soon had a criminal “roof.” According to other information, Kashpirovsky himself became acquainted with some “authorities” while still being a doctor of the USSR weightlifting team (then athletes began to join the organized crime group). But be that as it may, in Kyiv the organized crime group of the Savlokhov brothers, athletes and close friends of Kobzon, became the “roof” of Kashpirovsky and his PR man Gordon. And not just a “roof”: in 1993, Dmitry Gordon co-founded the Kyiv private clinic “Boris”, named after the leader of that same organized crime group Boris Savlokhov (nickname Solokh), who also invested in this clinic (through his people) and provided assistance to it patronage. By the way, Boris Savlokhov himself was also the subject of Dmitry Gordon’s interviews more than once – but, of course, not as an “authority,” but as a coach and “philanthropist.”

But at the turn of the 80-90s, Kashpirovsky moved to Moscow, where he gave “television sessions” on central television. Gordon also went with him, but then for some reason there was a break between them: it was reported that the psychic simply sent an overly greedy journalist and found cheaper PR people. This left Gordon practically without money, and he would have had to go to PR for some politician if he had not found himself a new “sensation” in the person of Allan Chumak.

Former Moscow journalist Chumak, who once exposed “healers” himself, did not even try to imitate Kashpirovsky. He simply moved his hands, whispered something under his breath and “charged” the water (as well as salt, cream, soap and toothpaste). But this parody of a psychic hid a huge business potential, which Dmitry Gordon took advantage of.

Firstly, the “Chumak technique” did not belong either to Kashpirovsky’s pseudo-scientific psychotherapy or to occult witchcraft; it was generally impossible to qualify it – and therefore, to recognize it as charlatanism. However, in 1993, Chumak was expelled from Russian television – and then Gordon brought him to Kyiv, where such “tricks” were turned a blind eye. Secondly, Chumak was the first to switch to the practice of “individual techniques,” which then became the main one in the “healing empire” of Dmitry Ilyich. And she reduced the chance of exposing charlatans to a minimum, since the “healing” took place without prying eyes. Thirdly, “charged” objects and photographs could be sold, and for a lot of money. Perhaps this is precisely why Gordon established Rada LLC (USREOU No. 16481421), which first specialized in trading from trays, and then joined the medical business.

It is curious that already then, in the 90s, a certain Pyotr Ivanovich Kushch became a co-founder of Rada LLC – Gordon’s equal partner not only in “hawker trade”, but also in the newspaper “Boulevard”, as well as the Publishing House “Credo” (which started from the publication of occult brochures, now repurposed into children’s literature). This mysterious man, whose identity Gordon never revealed, but, on the contrary, carefully hid in the shadows, is also a co-owner of luxury real estate in Kyiv and the region, and a co-founder of Klim LLC and the Housing Cooperative Association of the SMT Kozin Microdistrict. Also Skelet.Info It is known that in 1993, Pyotr Kushch was a co-founder of the Boris clinic together with Dmitry Gordon, Vladimir Nikolin (whose sister was selling “charged” photographs) and Mikhail Radutsky. Perhaps Kushch was a person from the Savlokhovs’ organized crime group, holding their “share” in Gordon’s business.

Dmitry Gordon. “Healing” on stream

And yet, the very first companion of Dmitry Gordon was Alexander Shvets. From 1982 to 1992, Shvets worked at Vecherny Kyiv (head of department, secretary, deputy editor), it was with him that Gordon began publishing his first materials about the “Kashpirovsky phenomenon”, it was Shvets who helped him get free placement at the institute and got him a job at Evening Kyiv » special correspondent. In 1992, Shvets became the editor-in-chief of Kievskie Vedomosti, created on the basis of Evening Kyiv and Prapor Komunizmu – and Dmitry Gordon re-formed there. After selling the newspaper to Mikhail Brodsky (29%) and Privatbank (40%), Shvets and Gordon moved to the newly created Vseukrainskie Vedomosti. Then, in 1995, Shvets, Gordon and Kushch (33% each) established the LLC Editorial Board of the Boulevard Newspaper, headed by Dmitry Gordon.

Initially, it was assumed that Boulevard would become a full color publication dedicated to the lives of stars of show business, sports and politics. But the idea initially failed, since the costs of such printing were not recouped by the small circulation, which could not be increased either by portraits of Masha Rasputina or by interviews with Bogdan Titomir. And then Shvets and Gordon decided, firstly, to make the publication black and white (except for the first page), and, secondly, to take up the old one – that is, to start making money on “miracles” again. The problem was one thing – where to get the “miracle workers”, since Alan Chumak alone was not enough, and he soon left for Moscow. Well, Dmitry Gordon himself began to create new “sensations”, taking as a basis the “healers” and “clairvoyants” that were becoming fashionable. Thus was born his factory of charlatans, which produced countless cynical swindlers.

Its basis was the newspaper “Boulevard”, which began promoting “healers”. Particularly eminent people were given a whole page for interviews, while others were content with only advertising blocks. But it was this advertising that became the feature of Gordon’s “healing business.” As a rule, such an advertising block included brief information about the “healer” or “soothsayer,” an announcement about the place and time of the “sessions,” and the obligatory fake thank-you reviews from those “cured.” Texts like “after two appointments with the fortune teller Lyalya, my husband stopped drinking, returned to the family and found a good job” or “after meeting with the contactee Peter, I was able to get pregnant and give birth, now we are expecting a second child!” were written in bulk by Boulevard employees, as well as by the editors of local newspapers, which carried these advertisements. If Gordon’s advertising agents, from their generosity, bought half a page each in the provincial “City Lights”, then they allowed the newspapers to fill the sold space with pictures or additional “reviews”. And they, joyfully clutching money in their hands, joined the conveyor belt of deception, “cheating” their own neighbors out of money.

In order to spend money on advertising in other publications (advertising in Boulevard brought profit to its founders), more and more of it was needed. The horde of “healers” grew rapidly, covering all of Ukraine with their “services,” but it wasn’t enough for Gordon and his companions. Without thinking twice, they decided to limit the income of their protégés. At first, the “healers” were limited to the amounts agreed upon in the contract, and then they were even employed at the specially created “Center for Traditional Medicine “Dolya” and put on a salary, and a rather modest one at that – the tour organizers took the entire fee, and they carefully monitored that the fortune tellers and the “contactors” did not “close” a single hryvnia. And people from the organized crime group helped Gordon organize this business – at least in the 90s this was the case. It was necessary not only to provide a “cover” from attacks by provincial bandits, not only to keep their “healers” in check, but also to disperse competitors, and also to intimidate “apostates.”

The connection between “healers” and “healers” with the criminal world was often visible to the naked eye, even to their clients. So, for example, in 1998, during a tour of Ukraine, the “healer” Maria Stefania (Zoe Reutt), advertised by the same Gordon, was assisted in her sessions by colorful personalities with blue hands from numerous tattoos. Moreover, the tattoos were of a certain theme: “rings”, crosses, some kind of prison abbreviations. Called “brothers” and “disciples,” they were engaged in “collecting donations,” selling talismans and “charged photographs,” and at the same time making sure that no one interfered with the deception and “conning” of desperate, sick old people. However, a few years later, Gordon replaced these “brothers in the pre-trial detention center” with “titushki” with more civilized persons introducing themselves as Boulevard journalists.

Maria Stefania herself then quarreled with Gordon and left him, and even began to expose him in the press – while forgetting how she herself “sold” her amulets to sick old people.

But all this would have been impossible without the patronage of the authorities and individual politicians. Gordon’s personal acquaintances also played a big role in this – for example, with Vladimir Litvin, Dmitry Tabachnik. But perhaps the main “cover” from the authorities for their joint business was provided by Alexander Shvets, who in the mid-90s found himself in favor with the Administration of President Kuchma. It was not for nothing that he was showered with high awards, and the newspaper “Facts and Comments”, which he headed in 1997, was one of the main “pro-Kuchma” newspapers until 2004: in some places local officials arranged for mandatory subscriptions for institutions and businessmen !

Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info

CONTINUED: Dmitry Gordon: producer of a factory of charlatans. PART 2

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