The newly appointed acting director of the Dovzhenko Center, Yulia Kazhdan, used to be an accountant and founded a dog training center. For the last year, the woman has been actively offering consultations on hypnotherapy and psychosomatics in social networks. In particular, in her psychological blog, you can read about “cynophobia” – fear of dogs.
Slidstvo.info thoroughly investigated the background of the newly appointed head of the state enterprise and found no mention of any experience in the film industry. However, journalists found Kazhdan’s companies that were involved in criminal proceedings.
When journalists asked the new head to comment on her appointment, Yulia Kazhdan repeated several times by phone that she could not talk at that time. At the same time, another journalist of Slidstvo.Info called Yulia Kazhdan and tried to sign up for a hypnosis session – the woman spent on the conversation with her 12 minutes of time, provided a detailed explanation of her methods of work and signed her up for a consultation. Both conversations took place during the working hours of the newly appointed head of the Dovzhenko Centre.
The newly appointed acting director of the Dovzhenko Center, Yulia Kazhdan, used to be an accountant and founded a dog training center. For the last year, the woman has been actively offering consultations on hypnotherapy and psychosomatics in social networks. In particular, in her psychological blog, you can read about “cynophobia” – fear of dogs.
Slidstvo.info thoroughly investigated the background of the newly appointed head of the state enterprise and found no mention of any experience in the film industry. However, journalists found Kazhdan’s companies that were involved in criminal proceedings.
When journalists asked the new head to comment on her appointment, Yulia Kazhdan repeated several times by phone that she could not talk at that time. At the same time, another journalist of Slidstvo.info called Yulia Kazhdan and tried to sign up for a hypnosis session – the woman spent on the conversation with her 12 minutes of time, provided a detailed explanation of her methods of work and signed her up for a consultation. Both conversations took place during the working hours of the newly appointed head of the Dovzhenko Centre.
CYNOLOGIST
On November 2, the State Agency of Ukraine for Cinema dismissed the head of the Dovzhenko Center Olena Honcharuk following an audit. She publicly opposed the decision of the State Film Agency to reorganize the structure, which could have led to the destruction of the Center, which houses the archive of Ukrainian cinema. A few days before Honcharuk’s dismissal, the Dovzhenko Center filed a lawsuit against the State Film Agency.
The State Film Agency of Ukraine published an order that the Dovzhenko Center will be temporarily headed by Yulia Kazhdan, who is called a professional crisis manager on the institution’s website. The media reported that Yulia Kazhdan runs a dog training center and has no experience in the field of cinema, which caused outrage and ridicule in social networks (transl. – in Ukrainian the words “cynology” (кінологія) and “cinema” (кіно) have have the same part – “кіно” that has become a basis for the social media derision).
The journalists of Slidstvo.Info investigated the professional and life path of the new head of the Center. And also talked to her – both as a hypnotherapist and as the newly appointed head of the center.
Newly appointed acting director of the Dovzhenko Center Yulia Kazhdan / Photo – from Yulia Kazhdan’s profile in messengers
Yulia Kazhdan is 45 years old – she was born on November 23, 1976. The woman has a sister Yanina Kazhdan and a mother Valentyna, who was born in the Stavropol Territory of the Russian Federation. No real estate and cars are registered for Yulia. But several different companies are registered.
In June 2013, Yulia Kazhdan together with Olena Prykhodko founded a limited liability company “Erste Hund” Dog Training Center”. The center is located in the village of Nove, Kyiv-Svyatoshinsky district. The center is not very active in social networks, so it is difficult to get a complete picture of its activities. The center’s Facebook page only states that the dog training enterprise provides services of a hotel for animals, dog training and services of an animal psychologist. Kazdan is still its co-owner and manager.
HYPNOTIST
In social networks, the journalists of Slidstvo.info found the pages of “Kazhdan Hypnosis” dedicated to hypnotherapy and psychology. You can sign up for hypnosis sessions through messengers linked to a mobile phone number. In a special application that allows you to identify the subscriber, the number from the page “Hypnosis Kazhdan” is signed as “Erste Hund Dog Training Center”. This confirms that dog handler Yulia Kazhdan can also be a hypnotherapist.
On the Instagram page, the new head of the Dovzhenko Center positions herself as a specialist in working with emotions and promises “in-depth study of your problem”. She also calls herself a “crisis psychologist” (on the State Cinema website, the woman is called a “crisis manager”). Yulia made the first post in this profile on July 14, 2021.
Under the introduction post, Yuliia Kazhdan introduces herself as a certified specialist in laboratory diagnostics and clinical parasitology, as well as a certified hypnotherapist. Below she lists the courses taken to confirm her qualifications, and claims that over the past 3 years she has studied all approaches in modern hypnotherapy.
Screenshot of the post on Yulia Kazhdan’s blog from Instagram
“I can help to get rid of a lifelong problem,” Yulia writes on her page, “the client’s eyes sparkling with joy, words of gratitude and understanding that a person’s life has become much more pleasant and effective – that’s what inspires me to continue my work.”
Among the various psychological problems on the page “Hypnosis for Everyone” is also considered the problem of cynophobia – fear of dogs. This may also indicate the new head of the Dovzhenko Center’s fascination with dogs and psychology.
One of Yulia Kazhdan’s blog posts is dedicated to cynophobia – fear of dogs
ACCOUNTANT
In 2005, Yulia Kazhdan became the founder of Kazhdan & Partners Law Firm LLC, which specializes in accounting and auditing. Since its establishment and until the autumn of 2012, Kazhdan was the owner and head of the company. After that, the company was re-registered in the name of Vilmos Deme, a resident of Mukachevo, Transcarpathian region, who remains the owner and manager to this day. In 2007–2011, the company declared multimillion revenues: from about 9 to 19 million hryvnias.
This company appears in the criminal proceedings of 29.05.2015 on abuse of power or official position. According to the court ruling, the investigators received access to documents on the company’s cash flow from 01.01.2012 to 15.01.2016. At least during 2012 (until September), Kazhdan remained the owner of the company.
Together with her sister Yanina Kazhdan, Yulia became a co-founder of LLC “Consulting Company “Glikberg and Partners”, which they established in November 2011. At the time of establishment and for several years after that the firm was registered in the same building as the Law Firm “Kazhdan and Partners”, but in a different office (Kyiv, 1 Laboratornyi lane, office 200).
In 2014, the Mikhail Kosenko became the owner and head of the firm. The place of registration has also changed. According to YouControl, in 2013 the company had up to 24 million hryvnias of revenue.
On April 9, 2014, an investigator from the Financial Investigation Department tried to gain access to the accounting documents of the “Consulting Company “Glikberg and Partners” in the case of tax evasion through the court. But the judge refused him. At that time, the company was owned by the Kazhdan sisters. Soon Kosenko became the owner. Probably, in this way, the previous owners tried to avoid connection with the criminal proceedings, which dealt with dubious financial transactions.
Today, Yulia Kazhdan is the owner and head of the private enterprise “Julia-K”, which she founded in 1999. The company also specializes in accounting and auditing. By the way, one of the company’s phone numbers, which can be found in open sources, coincides with the phone number where you can order a consultation on hypnotherapy.
“HYPNOSIS IS NOT A MAGIC PILL”
Journalists of Slidstvo.info called Yulia Kazhdan with a request to comment on her appointment. The woman picked up the phone, confirmed that it was her, but said that she could not talk now and asked to call back at the end of the day.
At the same time, another journalist from Slidstvo.Info called the same phone number and said she wanted to make an appointment for hypnotherapy. Kazhdan spent 12 minutes with the potential client and told her in detail about the methods she uses in her practice.
Journalist: Hello! I found your profile on Instagram, I want to ask you about hypnotherapy. Tell me, please, do you still consult? Is it still relevant?
Yulia Kazhdan: Yes, yes.
Journalist: I have such a problem, the fear of choking – phagophobia.
Yulia Kazhdan: First you need to make an appointment for a preliminary consultation, that is diagnostic. Let’s see what kind of therapy will be better for you… Everything is online. The consultation costs one thousand hryvnias, we will determine which methods will be most suitable for you. That is, it is not a fact that you need hypnosis in principle, maybe it can be solved by some other technique.
Journalist: But the price of this consultation and further ones is a thousand hryvnias?
Yulia Kazhdan: If therapeutic, then yes, a thousand hryvnias. If it is hypnosis, the prices are different.
Journalist: And if hypnosis, how much is it?
Yulia Kazhdan: 1600 hryvnias per session.
Journalist: I see. I will also ask if you have already had clients with such fear?
Yulia Kazhdan: Yes!
Journalist: Were they successfully cured?
Yulia Kazhdan: Yes. Yes, absolutely. And they were both in conventional therapy and in hypnotic variants. It happens that you can start with one therapy and then switch to hypnosis. That is, this can also happen. I just want you to understand that hypnosis is not a magic pill that you downloaded once, came out of the state of hypnosis and that’s it, life began to sparkle immediately.
During the conversation, the woman also said that she has experience in hypnotherapy for about 20 years. Yulia Kazhdan said to transfer the money for the online consultation to the card. The consultation was agreed on the next day after the conversation.
It is worth noting that the conversation about hypnosis treatment took place on the second working day during the working hours of the newly appointed head of the Dovzhenko Center, whom the State Cinema called a professional crisis manager. Instead, Yulia Kazhdan refused to answer journalists’ questions about her appointment during her working hours.