Ex Special Forces Soldier Manicures Hands To Land Job

A Russian special forces soldier who struggled to find work in civilian life after leaving the army has qualified as a beautician so that he could get rid of his rough edges.

Dmitry Bratchikov, 37, who was a captain in the special forces and a qualified psychologist, said he noticed that when he got back into civilian life, he still tended to try to order everybody else around and expected military discipline in those he dealt with.

Credit: CEN/@kuban.kp.ru
Ex Special Forces Soldier Learned Manicure To Get Back into Civilian life

When he did not get it, he quickly became disillusioned and others found it difficult to deal with him as a result.

In order to make a clean break, he said he then decided to do a two-month course learning how to be a professional manicurist, as this was about as far away to his previous career as he could imagine.

He said that in the army, he had specialised in searching for mines and bombs in Chechnya before joining the special forces.

When he graduated with two diplomas from the beauty Academy, he said he was flooded with offers from people running beauty parlours who were delighted at the possibility of having an ex special forces captain working for them in what was a competitive market, but he said the customers were not so keen, at least initially.

Credit: CEN/@kuban.kp.ru
Ex Special Forces Soldier Learned Manicure To Get Back into Civilian life

But once they had seen what he could do, there were soon long queues for his services in his home city of Krasnodar which is the administrative centre of Russia’s Krasnodar Krai region located on the Kuban River.

In an interview with Central European News (CEN), the soldier psychologist said: “I wanted to overcome my male pride and try to do what women do. Manicure work is hellish labour. I mean it’s not like going underground and being a miner, but you still need a lot of strength, sitting for hours to do pedicures takes a lot of focus.

“My experience as a manicurist helps me show people how you can get out of your comfort zone, how to find for yourself what is interesting.

“I want to show those like me who are leaving a career or retiring that life can only begin, but not end. ”


To find out more about the author, editor or agency that supplied this story – please click below.
Story By:  Elena Kalioglo, Sub-Editor:  Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News


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