Posted by the mollusk at user216-178-75-144.netcarrier.net on January 17, 2003 at 11:13:36:
From the London Sunday Times:
The novi Russki, Russia’s new rich renowned for luxury cars and grand villas in the south of France, have a new pastime. They pay thousands of pounds for a taste of life as a beggar, a prostitute, or a traffic warden.
Bored with their gilded lifestyles, wealthy bankers and businessmen are seeking new thrills through elaborate pranks organised by a company that allows them to be poor and filthy. In one entertainment clients pay £3,500 to play at being homeless. They are disguised by costume and make-up artists who dress them in rags and smear them with rotten turnip.
Players go to a Moscow train station and stake out a place for a few hours. Bets are placed on which bogus beggar can earn the most money. The company pays off police and real down-and-outs to ensure its clients are not arrested or abused.
Another popular game is to pose as pimps and prostitutes. Wives or girlfriends wear revealing clothes and stand on the street. The men bet on whose companion will be approached by the most prospective customers. A policeman hired to provide security intervenes to send real punters packing.
''Rich people who have travelled the world need new thrills,'' said Sergei Knyazev, whose company organises such games. ''I provide a chance to be someone else and have fun.''
Knyazev was inspired by The Game, a Hollywood film in which Michael Douglas plays a bored businessman who pays a firm to spice up his life with a series of dramatic events.
Knyazev appears to have no shortage of clients. One woman paid £2,500 to become a stripper, and surprised her husband by performing at his favourite lap-dancing bar.
The friends of another businessman have paid £13,000 for ''surprises'' on his birthday. He will be stopped in his chauffeur-driven Mercedes by actors posing as police. They will plant ''drugs'' and take him to a police station for questioning.
Other games include shoplifting at supermarkets to see who can escape with the most expensive item, and posing as one of Moscow’s notoriously corrupt traffic wardens.
''We have been accumulating wealth for more than 10 years. We have everything — the cars, the villas, the diamonds, the bodyguards,'' said one Russian who plans to use Knyazev’s services. ''It’s pretty boring. So why not be a beggar or a pimp with a few mates just for a laugh? It’s all good fun.''