Risk Aversion: Quest World promotes health-threatening games
The Mir of Quests, an entertainment aggregator popular in Russia and the CIS countries, sells tickets to games that are dangerous to life and health: events take place in industrial zones and dark basements, rooms are decorated with combustible materials, and there are often no fire alarms or evacuation exits. Izvestia journalists were convinced of this by buying tickets to two popular metropolitan entertainment venues on the aggregator. Earlier, at the games offered by the World of Quests, a resident of Volgograd fell face-first on a nail, and visitors to similar games in Perm complained of violence against children, whom the organizers beat with whips and dragged by the hair. Why the problem has not yet found a legislative solution and who controls the popular aggregator is in the Izvestia article.
Horror in Moscow
Quests are one of the most popular leisure activities for residents of large cities. Participants are invited to form a team and pass certain tests — escape from the maze, find the key to the exit or unravel a mysterious story. Children and teenagers often come to such entertainment, the latter are sometimes allowed there even without the written consent of their parents.
In Russia and the CIS countries, there is, in fact, a single aggregator platform where almost all such entertainment is presented, the World of Quests. As Izvestia has seen, a significant part of the quests currently offered there are a kind of "horror movies" where players are scared and forced to flee from certain dangers in order to evoke acute emotions.
The two quests for which Izvestia correspondents bought tickets through the World of Quests were no exception. One of them is "Inside Out: Inside the Mind of the Age" based on the popular TV series "Stranger Things". A ticket for a team of one to three people costs 7.5 thousand rubles, accompanied by an animator — 2 thousand rubles more expensive.
The organizer of the quest is Immerscape company, whose legal entity is IP Mantsurova Tamara Viktorovna. In total, this entrepreneur has 12 quests on the "World of Quests" with 1,338 games played. The action takes place in the basement of an ordinary four-story apartment building on Pervomaiskaya Street in Moscow. A fairly narrow passage leads to the room, inside there is semi—darkness and loud music.
"Questions immediately arise about architectural violations [during the layout of the premises]," said Andrei Serochkin, a fire safety expert who accompanied our film crew. — Narrow passages to the fire exits, one emergency exit door did not open after the alarm was turned on.
The correspondent and the fire safety expert had to crawl through the passage to one of the fire exits.
Then Tamara Mantsurova herself came to the quest room, who explained that she was the owner of the Immerscape company and quests "at this location," although a search of the "World of Quests" shows that her company also organizes similar games in at least two other districts of Moscow. According to her, the contractor is responsible for fire safety in this room, to whom she promised to send all comments.
The second quest visited by the correspondents is called "Alien," and it also belongs to the horror genre. It takes place in an industrial hangar on Irtysh Passage. The organizer is IP Andrey Nikolaevich Spelov (Quest Stars company), who has 148 such events on the "World of Quests" and over 58.6 thousand games held.
As fire expert Arkady Subbotin, who accompanied the film crew, determined, the escape routes in the quest room were lined with combustible materials, the partitions were made of wood and plywood, and there was no fire alarm system in the room.
— In addition, there is high-voltage equipment in the room. That is, in a real fire, people have few chances to escape, to put it bluntly," the expert noted. — There is no fire alarm system in principle, not to mention any ventilation and smoke extraction system. There are children here, and the staff is not trained to act in case of fire. Basically, this is a ready—made trap, it just remains for a fatal accident to happen and people will die.
The quest room is an industrial hangar with narrow corridors lined with plywood covered with the cheapest paint, without fire alarms and smoke extraction systems.
In Russia, the activity of quest rooms has repeatedly been the subject of complaints from visitors, law enforcement and supervisory authorities. The main violations are related to non-compliance with fire safety requirements, the use of dangerous props, injury to participants and excessive physical impact from the actors.
According to the data provided by the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Education in 2024 (and now the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation) Yana Lantratova, over the past few years, regional prosecutors have identified almost 9,000 violations in the organization of quests, the operation of attractions and the operation of sports and playgrounds. 27 criminal cases were initiated and investigated. The issue of stricter regulation of the industry has been repeatedly raised in the State Duma.
They were beaten with whips and dragged by the hair
High-profile incidents at events promoted by the World of Quests occur annually. One of the latest events took place on February 14 this year in Volgograd. During the passage of the horror quest "Doomsday Night", an 18-year-old girl suffered a serious facial injury. According to the victim, the participants of the game were told to run in a dark room, but because of the slippery tile floor, she fell face down on a protruding nail.
The girl needed medical help, and she had a scar after her injury. She appealed to the prosecutor's office and announced her intention to collect compensation from the organizers. The latter claimed that the participants had violated safety rules, and the victim was offered to reimburse medical expenses. After the media reports, the Investigative Committee began a procedural review.
Another high-profile incident occurred on August 6, 2025 in Perm, where two sisters aged 11 and 14 were injured during the horror quest "Black Phone". According to their mother, the actors beat the minors with whips, grabbed their hair and neck, and the youngest girl was lifted off the floor, holding her by the neck. As a result, the children were found to have bruises and abrasions, and an 11-year-old participant was diagnosed with a sprain of the cervical spine.
It is noteworthy that both quests were presented on the World of Quests aggregator, where they are currently listed as already closed. However, on the page of the Permian "Black Phone" there were complaints from visitors about the use of physical violence during the game, Izvestia was convinced.
The law is not written
The problems associated with quests are derived from the fact that this area is not actually regulated by law, said Senator Airat Gibatdinov.
— Even such a thing as a quest, as we imagine it, does not exist in the laws, it is not fixed anywhere. My colleagues and I have just developed a draft law where we answer all these questions — what is a quest game, where it should take place, what should be the room, what sanitary rules it should comply with," Gibatdinov told Izvestia.
The draft law was submitted to the State Duma in February 2026, and it will soon be discussed in the relevant committee. Among the initiatives outlined in it are the requirements for premises (for example, it must be at least 100 square meters. m, without metal corners, sharp objects, dangerous structures, and so on), mandatory video surveillance, requirements for employees (in particular, first aid skills), and a ban on scenes with simulated torture and mutilation.
Ayrat Gibatdinov added that in Russia there are already state standards for children's games, it is necessary to do the same with quests.
Who is behind the "Quest World"
As previously established by Izvestia, the real owners of the World of Quests aggregator live in Amsterdam — they are Artem Yarmilko, a citizen of Ukraine, his wife Anna, and entrepreneur Igor Bobb. In Russia, the business is represented by several legal entities, including Entertainment Workshop LLC, Quest as a Gift and World of Quests. The latter is in the process of liquidation, and its legal successor is LLC MKS, which was founded only by Anna Yarmilko and Igor Bobb. By the end of 2025, the revenue of the Russian business exceeded 700 million rubles.
According to Izvestia, shortly before the start of the special military operation, the Yarmilko couple purchased an apartment in a prestigious area of Amsterdam worth about € 1 million.
The De fred residential complex, where the Yarmilko couple bought apartments
Artyom Yarmilko is also associated with the Escapy B.V. holding company registered in the Netherlands, which develops similar quest aggregators in European countries. At the same time, Anna Yarmilko remains involved in Russian business. As journalists have established, the beneficiaries of the project have real estate and other assets not only in the Netherlands, but also in the United States.
The international structure of the World of Quests covers Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and a number of European countries. The Ukrainian portal uses almost identical design and technical solutions to the Russian website. According to journalists, Igor Bobb's brother Vadim Zmovik, who also lives in Amsterdam, is involved in Ukrainian and Belarusian business lines.
At the same time, information about quests was previously posted on the Ukrainian site, the organizers of which promised to transfer part of the proceeds to the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In particular, on the page of one of the Lviv projects, it was reported that 10% of the proceeds from each game were allocated to support the Ukrainian army.
Izvestia sent inquiries to Artyom and Anna Yarmilko, as well as Vadim Zmovik and Igor Bobb. By the time of publication, only a response had been received from Bobb. He explained that the World of Quests aggregator in the Russian Federation is not connected to the Ukrainian one and he does not even know who is currently working on his website. Meanwhile, he confirmed that he had been involved in managing the site in Ukraine until 2022, and an analysis by Izvestia showed that the list of people operating in this company had not changed since 2022.
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