After the most recent attack on Sergei Kanev — attempted strangulation with a wire, in his apartment’s stairwell here — his editor visited him and delicately suggested that he take a six-month sabbatical from crime reporting, in America.
Mr. Kanev still chortles with delight recalling this story, as if he had been advised to take up tap dancing. He is the kind of reporter who sleeps with a police scanner beside his bed. Without work, “I would die of boredom,” he said.