Andriy Tykhonovych Slyusarchuk (, born 10 May 1971) is a Ukrainian mnemonist who has claimed to be a general aviation pilot, a psychotherapist, a Doctor of Science in medicine, a psychiatrist, a psychologist and a neurosurgeon. He performed brain surgery throughout Ukraine in state and municipal hospitals. Slyusarchuk was employed by the V. Chornovol Lviv State Institute of Modern Technology and Management, the Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture, the P.L. Shupyk National Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education, and the A. P. Romodanov Institute of Neurosurgery, he lectured at the Lviv Polytechnic, and worked at the government of Ukraine as an adviser to Oleksandr Turchynov.
He claimed to have set several world records in mnemonics by memorizing data and figures (such as pi) and performing complex calculations in his mind. Because of this, he is known as "Doctor Pi".
Slyusarchuk defrauded two Ukrainian presidents: Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych. The Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian Parliament) referred to his activities as "the largest-scale fraud in Ukraine's 20 years of independence". On 14 February 2014, the Sykhiv Raion Court sentenced Slyusarchuk to eight years in prison.
Education and career
Slyusarchuk's education began in an institutional school for intellectually-disabled infant orphans in the village of Hryshkivtsi (Berdychiv Raion of Zhytomyr Oblast). He was diagnosed with schizophrenia, oligophrenia, cerebral palsy, hepatitis and nephropathy. Slyusarchuk claimed he obtained a Doctor of Science degree, which allowed him to go into medical practice, performing neurosurgery, appearing on radio and television, granting interviews and publicly demonstrating his mnemonic skills. He met a Ukrainian president (who authorized him to establish the National Institute of Brain), attended private clubs and meetings of Ukrainian nomenklatura, befriended ministers and received a State Prize. Slyusarchuk forged documents, cheated the public at chess matches and memory demonstrations and practiced medicine without a license. He was interviewed by major newspapers, such as Trud: As a teacher, as a psychiatrist, I can say pleno jure (with full right): today it is mostly the dependent children who attend universities in this country. All is about money, there is no natural scientific selection. Previously, in the 1980s and 90s, you had to withstand intellectual contest. Today there is no necessity for it. Now a lot of mediocrities grind away at their studies. But with mother's and father's money, they manage to buy not only diplomas but also positions.
Biography
Biography based on details uncovered by the investigative journalism
Slyusarchuk was born in Zhytomyr, Ukraine on 10 May 1971. His 21-year-old mother, Natalia Tykhonovna Slyusarchuk of Zhytomyr, left her newborn son at a maternity home. She did not know the name of the father of her child, and Slyusarchuk's middle name was recorded on his birth certificate as "Tykhonovych" (the masculine version of Natalia Slyusarchuk's patronymic).
He was hospitalized at the Zhytomyr psychiatric hospital eight times between 1974 and 1987. From 1980 to 1987 (second to eighth grade) Slyusarchuk lived and studied at an institutional school for young orphans in the town of Hryshkivtsi in Berdychiv Raion, receiving a certificate for the completion of his education there. Nearly all the documents pertaining to his education at the school were later destroyed; his birth date became 19 May 1974 on some documents, yielding negative results for official inquiries about his time at the school.
From 1987 to 1989, Slyusarchuk studied in the 208th group at the inter-regional Higher Vocational School of Railway Transport in Kozyatyn, Vinnytsia Oblast, to become a plasterer-tiler-facing worker. On 2 October 1989, according to order No. 31, he was transferred to the Specialized Vocational School No. 62 in Chervonohrad, Lviv Oblast. According to teachers there, Slyusarchuk walked with a briefcase and a stethoscope like a doctor and conducted hypnosis sessions at a nearby school to earn money. On 1 June 1990, he received a certificate for the completion of his course; although his occupation was listed as "assistant foreman”, he was not appointed to a job. In 1993 Slyusarchuk was turned down for a position as a neurosurgeon at the hospital in Novoyavorivsk (Lviv Oblast), but later practiced medicine elsewhere.