New Anna Delvey? Russian influencer Polina brings the illusion of luxury and wealth to the networks
Polina Pushkareva, appearing on social networks as Polina Nioly, has over a million followers on Instagram and her videos reach hundreds of thousands of views. She presents herself as a millionaire, film producer, entrepreneur, and successful influencer. She tries to prove to viewers that everything is possible if one has enough motivation. However, her story is accompanied by complaints, speculation, and suspicions of untruths. The young Russian woman does indeed offer the internet a fairy tale of luxury, but the question remains what hides behind her closed doors.
Polina comes from a small town of Kovrov located in the central part of Russia. Her hometown could not fulfill the dreams she hoped for, so in 2021, New York came into play.
"My childhood in a provincial town was not at all exceptional - something was always missing and sometimes there was no money at all. We didn't travel, there was almost nothing. Nevertheless, I grew up in a family with solid moral values,”
She described her childhood in an interview for The Pace Press.
Her beginnings in this field were simple. She herself was initially a blogger and gradually began to work on the development and promotion of her own customers' social networks. Her goal was to turn bloggers into real influencers. Thanks to this, she also founded her own company Nioly Media Group, which now earns a substantial part of her profits. In the meantime, however, she was dedicated to creating various courses mainly for her Russian viewers.
Online courses
With courses as such, it's not quite simple, considering you never know what they will exactly contain. Polina is probably betting on that too, having sold a large number of such courses.
At this time, you can purchase her course in English "How to become an influencer manager" for 390 dollars. That is roughly about 8100 CZK for promised 55 lessons, 60 days access to chat with Polina and her team and various advice.
"I'm currently taking her course (a bad idea, but oh well) and even in the current group conversation, there's confusion about where the results of the whole camp actually are. She claimed that one of the participants gained 20 thousand followers in a few days thanks to the camp, but so far, nothing similar has happened to anyone in the group. At the very least, it's interesting."
Shares one of the users in a Reddit forum, who questions Polina's entire business.
Substantially more courses, you can find in Russian. They range in price from 1300 rubles to just under 12,000. That's from just under 500 to 5000 Czech crowns. Her Russian courses, however, attract more criticism than praise.
Russian as a protection
The language barrier is what protects this influencer. Most complaints, evidence and dissatisfaction are hidden behind the veil of a foreign language. On Russian forums lies a lot of evidence about her "excellent" courses.
"The person in question also sells a design course, despite having nothing to do with design. A person without the necessary skills and a basic sense of aesthetics tries to teach others. Someone might object that people from her team teach the course - fine, then let's look at the work of her 'best designer' Veronika. Beware, uncontrollable eye bleeding may occur."
This is being discussed on a Russian debate forum, where incriminating screenshots and course quality are also attached.
Lawsuit from her own assistant
A very peculiar phenomenon is also the lawsuit from her former assistant Tsoi, for violation of fair work standards. Considering that Polina is supposed to be a supposed millionaire, obvious disagreements about the financial situation and the assistant's salary are somewhat confusing.
We can certainly say that Polina Nioly is a successful entrepreneur and knows how to move in show business, but does she always act legitimately? That is the question. The comparison to a well-known scammer named Anna Delvey, however, makes certain sense. And who knows? Maybe something even more revolutionary will come to the surface soon, reminding us that on social networks you can rent not only a private plane for a photo but also the entire identity of a successful entrepreneur. The question remains whether her followers buy real knowledge or just an expensive ticket to someone else's dream, which begins to fall apart under the weight of lawsuits and dissatisfied reviews upon closer inspection.
Sources: original text, Instagram, Youtube, Reddit, Thepasepress
