Strictly speaking, using dumbbells outside the gym is forbidden. But the gym at the Youth Residential Complex Butovo gets so crowded that some weightlifters spill out into the corridor. Every weeknight, people from the surrounding high-rises pour into this cramped basement for fitness training or boxing.
“We’re bursting at the seams,” says Sergei Popovkin, manager of the sports center and a former karate trainer. “When we opened in 1991, we would get 100 people a month. Now it’s more than three times that number, plus another 200 for fitness alone.”
