Chelyabinsk Magician's Secret to Earning 1.5 Million Monthly
Now we«ll show you a trick: the letters transform into a fascinating text about Chelyabinsk prestidigitator Alexander Petrenko. He performs tricks that earn him 1.5 million rubles (about $15,000) per month. He says he performed for Mayor Natalya Kotova (when she held that position), showing a trick with a budget guillotine. For the interview, we asked Alexander to come to our editorial office, and, of course, it wasn»t without tricks.
A prestidigitator is a magician known for sleight of hand.
«I (and other magicians) have all the tools to rob a bank, but we won«t and can»t do that, of course. That«s the art of magic—to use these tools to evoke emotions in people, to amaze, to bring them to hysterics in a good way,» says Alexander Petrenko after showing a trick in the 74.RU editorial office where he guessed the password on our photojournalist»s phone.
«Don«t Switch Twos for Fives»
A book on magic fell into fifth-grader Sasha«s hands by chance. At that time, he lived with his parents in Novotroitsk. The boy got interested, started experimenting with spoons and forks following Amayak Akopyan, and tested his material on his mother.
«I saw that she didn«t understand how it happened. I really liked that,» recalls Alexander Petrenko. «I started practicing more, to the point where I came to school and showed our principal tricks with money and cards. I»d catch him right during break: «Nikolai Yuryevich, look what I can do.» He always had a great reaction, joking: «Make sure you don»t swap twos for fives, be careful with the grade book.«»
Alexander says that for many tricks, props were needed, but there was no money in the family for that, so the schoolboy made everything from available materials.
«There are professional foam balls, like a clown«s nose, they»re very soft, and you can do a lot of interesting things with them. I couldn«t buy them and cut them out of a regular dishwashing sponge, so they came out semi-square,» laughs the magician. «At 13-14 years old, to earn pocket money, I pasted ads in stairwells, helped unload potatoes at the market. Then I thought that I have something I enjoy doing, so I should earn from it. In a newspaper, I came across a hostess who wrote an ad looking for a photographer and DJ for her team. I called her and I»m still grateful because she believed in me, saying: «Come, I»ll see what you can do.«»
For the meeting with the hostess, teenager Sasha went with his mother, showed a flying table trick, and within a couple of months, he was performing at a children«s party, earning 500 rubles (about $5). Then 1,500 rubles (about $15) — at a corporate event.
«I spent all the money on props,» continues Alexander. «Bought those balls, playing cards, various devices that ordinary viewers don«t see. There are small items for 300-500 rubles (about $3-5), and expensive secret things. For example, now in my program, all acts cost from 50,000 rubles (about $500) and up. So, for one trick, you need to spend that amount. I have close-up magic, stage magic, and parlor magic. Illusionists, of course, have more expenses.»
Orders and fees were increasing, and in his final year of school, Alexander told his parents he wouldn«t apply anywhere. Then his mother suggested he prepare a trick to make the army draft notice disappear.
«I understood that I would continue with magic, knew how to earn from it, why go to institute,» says Alexander. «But mom said: «Then you»ll be drafted into the army.« I thought about it and moved to Chelyabinsk, enrolled in the Institute of Culture for directing. I just had a magician friend studying there.»
«Everyone is Flabbergasted»
Now Alexander is 27 years old, in a month he sometimes holds up to 75 events, earning 1.5 million rubles (about $15,000). He has 150 tricks in his repertoire. Now Petrenko is starting solo concerts, dreaming of filling stadiums.
«I was self-employed, now I have enough money to register as an individual entrepreneur and work with large agencies and companies,» says the variety artist. «Usually I have three to four performances a day, the most was 11 performances on June 1. In the morning — children«s parties, in the afternoon — weddings, in the evening — graduation. Kids love balls from the mouth, candies from fire. At weddings, they adore the multiplying bottles trick. Graduates are also happy with bottles (laughs, — Ed.). For schoolchildren, I now do a calculator trick at the end. It»s probably the strongest. It just blows minds. Everyone grabs their heads, not understanding how it«s possible.»
We also grabbed our heads, admit it, when Alexander showed us this calculator trick. We didn«t film it on video, so we»ll describe in words how it was:
«Open the calculator on your phone — the trick is in your hands. Name any three-digit number (we name 333), multiply it by any two-digit number (we name 23), then multiply by the last two digits of your car number (ours is 65), now put a plus. Next, I«ll turn the phone screen down, and you randomly tap numbers on the screen to make it as random as possible. On the screen, it became 1,623,472, we put equals, and it became — 2,121,305. If you look closely at this result, you can find that it»s not a random number — it«s today»s date, December 2, and 1305 is the time right now on your watch.»
It«s true. Shock. Delight.
«And imagine, 300 people are sitting in the hall with their phones, and they also name random numbers, and in the end, everyone«s calculators show the current date and time. A magician»s professionalism lies not in performing the trick by instruction, but in being able to present the effect so that it evokes bright, cool emotions,» explains Alexander, but he flatly refuses to reveal the secret of this trick. He consoles us by saying he doesn«t even tell his wife.
«I Want to Show Everything to My Daughter»
How to relate to magic — with childlike joy or adult skepticism — everyone chooses for themselves. Alexander says that in Russia, people perceive magicians with caution and distrust.
«Our people in principle expect deception from everything, they look for a catch everywhere,» reflects the artist. «And here«s a magician, in their head it sounds like: »I«m going to deceive you now.» Some immediately don«t want it, others are like: »Well, try.« The audience is divided into two categories: some rejoice, are amazed like children, and others are skeptics. They try to understand the secret, immediately start looking for what he»s doing, where he«s hiding his hand. They don»t expect a wow effect, they don«t expect a miracle. They try to figure it out, and when they can»t understand what the secret is, then they enjoy it. Once I performed for a football team from Spain, they came to Chelyabinsk. I showed them tricks for 20 minutes without much language knowledge, and they were jumping on each other, throwing phones, shouting — they were maximally open. Our people, however, close up, and it«s hard to draw emotions out of them. And it»s not always clear: either you«re performing poorly, or people are just that unemotional.»
Alexander performed tricks for Natalya Kotova when she was the head of Chelyabinsk. The performance was on March 8. Among others, the artist presented a guillotine act, and the mayor did not participate in it.
«There was a manual guillotine — about 40 centimeters high. The point of the act is that I call a person on stage, take a banana, insert it into the guillotine and show that the banana is cut. Then I take the girl«s hand, insert it there, lower it, but the hand remains intact,» explains the magician.
The grateful audience, of course, are Alexander«s relatives and close ones, but in the family circle, he prefers to remain in the role of grandson, son, husband: he doesn»t want to bring work home. Another matter is his two-year-old daughter, to whom dad is ready to show all the wonders.
«Now, the simplest thing amuses her: I take a toy in my hand, she opens her hand, and the toy is gone. I retrieve it from under her t-shirt,» smiles our hero. «I really want to show everything to my daughter. Of course, she might later be indifferent to wonders, or, on the contrary, she might grow up and believe in magic.»
