Illicit (1)

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Candela

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Candela

The underground fight club in Moscow is literally underground, in what was once and abandoned metro station.

Now it functions as a spot for raves, drug deals, and bare-knuckle boxing tournaments run by the Bratva or mafiya.

      The shouts of the crowd echo down the tunnel where the train tracks are overgrown with weeds and clogged with discarded hypodermic needles.

You can still see the remains of faded billboards plastered on the  walls, advertising products that haven’t been sold since the fall of the Soviet Union.

You could see traces of tried up blood both on the floor and ground and terrible graffiti art trying to cover the blood.

      It’s chilly down here, at least ten degrees colder than at street level. I keep my hoodie on until the last moment, so my muscles stay warm.

      “You're fighting?” Nikolai asks me.

      He’s smoking a cigarette, even though he’s supposed to fight in a minute himself.

      “Pavel” I say.

      “He'll kill you,” Niko said in a thick accent. Sometimes the assholes here underestimate me for being female, and i prove them wrong fight after fight.

      “Wanna bet.”

      Niko takes a long drag, exhaling the blue smoke up to the vaulted ceilings, then crushes the butt under his heel.

      “A thousand Ruble,” he says, as if he’s doing me a favor.

      “I’m not interested in your money, if I win you will be at my beck and call till I get tired of you, if I lose which is very unlikely I'll give you a thousand dollars,” I tell him.

      Niko laughs.

      “Nadia!” Vladislav shouts. “You’re up.”

      I’m the first fight of the night. When I’m fighting, I use my Russian name. I use it for most everything when I’m in Moscow.

      I strip off my hoodie, leaving me only in my sports bra and baring my body to the cold. The chill feels like an electric current against my skin.

I can smell the scent of Niko's cheap cigarette and the damp mold of the subway tunnel. Also the sweat of the fifty or so men crowded on the platform, and the tang of alcohol from the flasks in their jackets.

      There’s no ring. We fight in a chalk circle. If we step outside the circle, the spectators will shove us back in again..

      Vladislav is the event organizer. He’s not mafiya himself, though he works for them.

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