Siberia Gym’s origins are clouded and mysterious but here is the story as it is now told. At the end of the cold war American business men saw a new world of opportunities opening up to them in the cold wastelands of Siberia. And in the tradition of capitalism decided that they could find new business ventures with our new Russian brothers and at the same time make lots of money.
From this new business world sprung the idea for a joint Russian American oil venture. Western oil workers were to be sent, voluntarily or involuntarily, to Siberia to bring life to old oil wells and make the oil flow again. One of these projects was to become the father of the Siberia Gym.
On this particular project the investors decided to make a minimum of expenditure. So they flew in prefabricated structures, much resembling sardine cans in appearance and in their affects on those forced to live inside of them.
This camp resembled a Siberia Gulag in more ways then one. Besides the sardine can living, a fence of barbwire surrounded the camp, which although the workers were free, it was still very depressing.
Forced to work long hours in the Siberia Wasteland the men needed someway to let off steam and to vent boredom. At first the way to do this was to go into the neighboring town and carouse around drinking and fraternizing with the wonderful Siberian women (how wonderful depended on how much vodka one had drank).
But then the manager, known ominously by the title "The Siberian American" forbade the workers from going into town. This brought great unrest to the camp. Workers wielding cutting torches and far more dangerous things such as legs of lamb stolen from the cafeteria cried for the heads of the management. Cries such as "give us something to do or give us death rang abound." The management fearing for their lives to sate the workers said, "we will build you…. a gym". This was the beginning of the Siberia Gym.
In spite of lessons learned about being cheap, the management built the Siberia Gym with a minimum of expenditure. The structure of the gym was built from shipping containers laying about the yard. These rusted containers were welded together by the most revered of Siberian craftsman, "The Welder Who Works Miracles". Then the company combed the world in search of the most discounted equipment in the world. Finding such antiquities as an original Nordic track complete with Viking war paint.
For the weights they once again called on the skills of the welder who pulled his attention away from things such as fixing pipes through which dangerous chemicals would flow in order to create the equipment. An entire weight set was fashioned with scrap. The weights coming in increments such as the little weight and the big weight that the huge Russian man uses for intimidating westerners.
To solve the bug problem a bug zapper was bought. This zapper was not up to the standard set by the mutated Chernobyl bugs of Siberia though. So after much thought it was retrofitted with a bar of weapons grade plutonium bought in a local market which gave it the power to fry all but the most savage of Siberian insects.
The Siberia Gym began like this but continued to grow………..and continues on today many years after its birth from scrap.
