Bored? Be poor for a while!
Appeared in La Nación.
The Russian new rich have found a peculiar hobby, recently reported by the English newspaper The Sunday Times: they pay large sums of money to experiment in their flesh how tramps, prostitutes and other marginal dwellers of Moscow live.Bored with their luxurious lifestyles, bankers and businessmen are looking for new emotions through elaborated scenes staged by a company that allows them to be poor... for a while. The clients, who pay 3500 dollars and more to be homeless, are characterized by costume and make-up professionals, who cover them with rags and even perfume them for the occasion. They are taken to some Moscow train station and usually compete to see who gets most money by begging. The production company makes sure that the Police and the real people living on the streets leave these simulators alone. In a different version of the game, the (female) participants act like prostitutes, betting on who will be approached by most possible customers on the streets. "Rich people needs new emotions -explained Sergei Knyazev, whose firm produces these games. I give them the possibility to be someone else." Knyazev was inspired by The game, an American movie in which Michael Douglas plays a successful businessman who takes part in a game organized by a mysterious company. In the film, this form of entertainment has unexpected consequences.
 
February, 2003.
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