On a Sunday morning in suburban Moscow, a crowd is gathering around a ring.
Fans have come to watch fighters punch, kick and knee their opponents in the brutal sport of mixed martial arts (MMA).
Across Russia and the former USSR, millions share a passion for this extreme sport, with superstar fighters earning a fortune and inspiring a new generation. But critics say political leaders are using the sport to promote their own interests.
101 East goes inside the violent world of MMA, from backstreet brawls where amateurs take their early knocks, all the way to the top of Russian society.
Moscow, on the Moskva River in western Russia, is the nation’s cosmopolitan capital. In its historic core is the Kremlin, a complex that’s home to the president and tsarist treasures in the Armoury. Outside its walls is Red Square, Russia’s symbolic center. It’s home to Lenin’s Mausoleum, the State Historical Museum’s comprehensive collection and St. Basil’s Cathedral, known for its colorful, onion-shaped domes.
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country located in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east, and from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea in the south.
Russia spans more than one-eighth of the Earth’s inhabited land area, stretching eleven time zones, and bordering 16 sovereign nations. Moscow is the country’s capital.
The Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991 and since 1993 Russia been governed as a federal semi-presidential republic. Russia is a major great power, with the world’s second-most powerful military, and the fourth-highest military expenditure. As a recognised nuclear-weapon state, the country possesses the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.
