“Well, anyone want more meat?”
In 2015, Andrey Belyaev began working as a judo coach at a children’s martial arts school. For several years the environment was friendly, the staff collaborative, and the owners accommodating, though the founder himself remained mostly unseen. Colleagues spoke of him in hushed tones, noting his plant-based diet and unwavering commitment to a healthy lifestyle.
It wasn’t until 2018 that Belyaev finally met the founder, and suddenly the silence among the staff made sense. He recalls a moment that would reveal why those conversations stayed guarded.
“Our first meeting took place in a large hall where sambists and judokas gathered for a general meeting. Coaches and students—ranging from six to eighteen—were present. The founder entered the room, and I realized something disturbing when he paused, then threw a severed ram’s head onto the carpet. A trail of blood marked the exit. He held it up and asked, triumphantly: ‘Look! And is that what you ate? Well, anyone want more meat?’”
The impact on the young attendees was immediate and profound. The mood turned tense and fearful. A seven-year-old girl cried, and Belyaev spent the next hour comforting her in the dressing room. The incident raised questions about safety and leadership, and he felt that the situation was harming the students more than it helped. “That person really needed to be addressed,” says Andrey.
Afterward, the school offered a week off to the children to process what had happened and to give time for some other space improvements. Within two months, Belyaev chose to resign, and several students followed him to a new school, seeking a healthier and more supportive environment.
I drank a quarter bar in a week, harassed dancers, and got into fights with guests.
Dmitry Vinokurov spent nearly two years as a bartender at a Sochi club, where he says the owners operated in a way that left staff exhausted and frustrated. He describes two key leaders in the business—brothers who had inherited the establishment and ran it with tightly controlled authority.
“Anastasia Romanovna managed the business, skilled and decisive, while Vyacheslav Romanovich did the hard, sometimes dirty work, leveraging family ties and negotiation skills. I’m not sure the benefits matched the damage caused,” Vinokurov notes.
During a typical week, the boss would drink heavily, often using company funds for personal entertainment, and would harass go-go dancers in front of the staff. Managers occasionally turned a blind eye, protecting the staff from the worst behavior. The boss’s confrontations with patrons, especially men from the Caucasus, became a recurring pattern, and security would have to step in to restore order after heated exchanges.
One night, as closing time neared, a confrontation on stage left the venue in chaos. A guest was injured, a DJ was shaken, and the boss ended up with a sprained arm while a staff member sustained a nose injury. The incident underscored a culture of volatility, even as the staff continued to be drawn back by the lure of steady work and the club’s popularity.
Even after the incident, the club’s climate did not improve. There were days when the boss performed on stage, flirting with dancers, and asserting control in ways that made the employees uncomfortable. Attendance dropped as people quit, exhausted by the erratic leadership. Vinokurov eventually left the club, and some former colleagues followed him to other jobs, seeking a safer, more stable work environment.
He tore up his resignation letter and held it by his hair
St. Petersburg’s flagship clothing store became a nightmare for a visual merchandiser named Anna Polushkina whenever a new director arrived. Her story captures a pattern of escalating pressure, fear, and conflict in the workplace.
“For the last two weeks, I don’t remember a single day that didn’t end in tears because he seemed determined to push me out,” Anna recalls. The situation began when she was asked to start an hour earlier than scheduled to cover for an injured colleague, without extra pay, under the pretense of temporary need.
Over the following days, the director insisted on the earlier start time, then escalated to shouting matches. When Anna argued that the arrangement had only been temporary, the manager threatened layoffs. She ultimately resigned, only to be asked to reconsider later that evening via a follow-up message from a temporary manager.
The climate at the store grew volatile. The director purportedly forced employees to mop floors, and he repeatedly demanded tasks be redone. The team endured humiliation and rude behavior, with a small staff forced into long shifts and a brutal work culture. Anna says she finally decided to resign, but the director tore up her letter and refused to let the dismissal proceed. She stood her ground, explaining that the treatment violated labor standards. The confrontation culminated in a physical threat, with the director grabbing her by the hair during a heated exchange.
Colleagues later described a culture of coercion, with many workers choosing to leave rather than endure the abuse. The experience left a lasting impression on Anna and her peers, highlighting the toll of abusive leadership in retail settings.
First they stripped down to their underwear, then they had to take off their underwear with socks.
When 15-year-old Boris Manulov began a street charity venture selling balloons and trinkets, the work felt manageable at first. The team faced a shift in leadership that revealed a troubling pattern of control and humiliation.
“The new leader was paranoid, suspicious of every transaction. He treated us like we were stealing money meant for charity, even when the boxes were sealed,” Boris recalls. The policy changes grew more invasive, with the young workers aged 14 to 16 subjected to stringent checks and humiliating inspections at the end of each day.
At one point the boss staged an alarming display, stripping workers down to their underwear and then going further to check for contraband. He treated the inspection as a kind of ritual, muttering threats and commands that left a chilling impression on the team. Some girls cried and ran away, choosing not to return, while others endured the ordeal for a time in hopes of earning their keep. The fear and discomfort persisted as these teens tried to balance school and work, hoping for a future beyond the control of a coercive supervisor.
Looking back seven years later, Boris is still unsettled by the memory of that period, but he also recognizes the resilience it instilled in him as he moved forward with his studies and life.