From Russia with Gloves

摘要

On a windy May evening, seven perfectly respectable, well-paid professionals -including two women-trudged up three flights of dusty concrete stairs in an abandoned Moscow factory and strapped on boxing gloves. For the next hour and 15 minutes they twisted and ducked, jabbed and cut, and sweated through their T-shirts as their hair turned to wet spaghetti. "I'll quit drinking, I'll quit smoking! I promise," one moaned, slinking, paunch first, out of the room and past the boxing club's owner, his wife. "Get back in," she snarled. "Stop whining."