They’re the “Tyler Durdens” of Moscow.
Former underground bareknuckle fighters in Russia have launched a real-life “Fight Club” for bussinessmen and office workers looking to get a kick out of life.
Members are charged $900 for the privilege of being beaten to a pulp by strangers in a week-long course.
The founders of the ‘Ronin Family’ told Vice their goal was to turn educated city-dwellers into men by psychologically and physically torturing them.
It’s an experience like that depicted in the Brad Pitt, Edward Norton movie “Fight Club” in which Pitt’s character, the iconic Durden leads a disenchanted group of misfits who beat each other up every night.
“I stumbled upon an ad for it on the Internet,” said photographer Maria Turchenkova in an interview with Vice.
“It read: ‘You are not what you have — your job, your car, or your bank account. If you want to change your life, find the warrior inside you and fight your inner enemy — come and join the next course!’ “
The main point of the club, Turchenkova said, was to “find faith in yourself, to get over the fear of being hit.”
“It was obvious that it all relied on psychology. The ‘fighters’ were first humiliated and then made to confront their moral weakness, so that when the time came for physical exhaustion, people managed to defeat their ‘inner enemy’ and finally, believe in themselves.”