About

Doctor R. Snick presenting at the Lodi Historical Society, May, 2024

Andrei Pischalnikoff, AKA "Doctor R. Snick", AKA "Major Blaze", has been a storyteller using various media for several years.  He began his journey speaking about 19th and 20th century quackery (fake medicine) and oddities as of December 2022.

You can see where he has recently been at Past Events.  He delivers captivating shows about patent medicines, snake oils, medicine shows, oddities and Memento Mori while focusing on the audiences interests.

In addition to ongoing research, he collects various patent medicine artifacts, strange devices that claimed to cure serious diseases and a variety of ephemera related to quackery and poisons of the Victorian and Edwardian eras.  On the flip side, Andrei also has a passion to share information about the "Oddities" of Barnum's museums and later sideshows of America, mourning jewelry & the different categories of Victorian hair jewelry.  He has spend a great deal of time at the Sierra Sacramento Valley Medical Museum.

Andrei has held many jobs, from being a 12 bravo (demolitions) in the army serving with the 10th Special Forces Group to working a large part of his 32 years with the State of California creating multimedia productions for internal and public use.

Andrei, known as Major Blaze, breathes cornstarch fire, spins a fire whip and uses a fire canon in his spare time.  He enjoys being a sideshow talker with "Sideshow" of Reno, a small group of artists and magicians that perform occasionally at festivals.  In years past, the Sideshow group (and Andrei) shared their talents at the annual Burning Man Festival of Black Rock City, Nevada.  This year (2024) Andrei was invited to be a part of Sidequest, a Sacramento based fire group.  They created and practiced choreograpy for several months, applied and were accepted by the Burning Man organization to perform under the "Man" with 24 other selected groups before the fireworks and ignition of the artwork.  Andrei had previously been a photographer of the event for several years, specializing in capturing fire performers.

Doctor R. Snick entertaining at the Antioch Historical Society annual member
meeting, 2024.  Photo provided by the AHS.

Major Blaze breathing cornstarch fire at Unscruz 2024.  Photo by Randall Bogner.

Doctor R. Snick entertaining at the 2024 Hocus Pocus event with the Gold River Villagers.  Photo by wait staff.

The Gold River Villagers at their Halloween Hocus Pocus event, 10/23/24

Major Blaze breathing fire at Burning Man 2024.  Photo by Joshua Vasquez.

Contact Doctor R. Snick at dr.r.snick@gmail.com
or text at 916.812.8507