About Andrei
Andrei Pischalnikoff, AKA "Major Blaze", AKA "Doctor R. Snick" has been a storyteller using various media for many years. You can see where he has recently been at Past Events. He delivers captivating shows about patent medicines, snake oils, medicine shows, and oddities 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.
Andrei has held many jobs, from being a 12 bravo (demolitions) in the army serving with the 10th Special Forces Group to working over 3 decades with the State of California (Creating multimedia products to inform and influence the California public and the staff of the agency).
As a hobby, Andrei spins fire, using a fire whip, a fire canon and breathing cornstarch fire. He enjoys being a sideshow talker with the "Sideshow" of Reno, a small group of artists and magicians that occasionally perform at festivals. The Sideshow group used to share their talents at the annual Burning Man Festival of Black Rock City, Nevada.
Major Blaze relaxing by breathing corn starch fire at Firedrums 2023.
Photo by Baldwin Chieh.
