Renat Agzamov, a former Russian heavyweight boxing champion, has swapped the ring for the kitchen, now creating cakes worth over £100,000. The 42-year-old, born in Kyiv in 1981, trained with the Russian Olympic team at CSKA Moscow and won several heavyweight titles before his father's illness forced him to retire at 15.
Agzamov began working in Moscow's kitchens, enduring low pay and tough conditions, but his passion for baking, sparked at age seven, never waned. Over the past 30 years, he has become one of the world's most celebrated pastry chefs, earning awards at multiple world championships and the title of confectionary champion in Russia.
His creations include a 13-foot-tall wedding cake worth an estimated £128,000, weighing 1.5 tonnes, served at the wedding of a niece of Kazakhstan's president to an oligarch's son. Another 10-foot tiered cake required three men to carry at the wedding of oil tycoon Ilkhom Shokirova's daughter.
Agzamov's designs feature pop culture icons like Marvel's Hulk smashing DC's Batman, and the Alien emerging from a cake, as well as landmarks such as Rome's Trevi Fountain. He now travels globally for clients, earning hundreds of thousands of pounds for his expertise.
