Kirill Oreshkin, from Moscow, is a photographer with a strange passion. He’s crazy about ‘rooftopping’ – a sport that involves hanging on for his dear life from all kinds of precarious ledges.
In all the photographs, you can see him smiling nonchalantly at the camera. Going by his expression, you’d think he was hanging around the corner of a sidewalk. But he’s actually perched hundreds of meters above the ground, in an extremely precarious position. One wrong move and there’s no escaping death.
Seriously, I don’t get how Oreshkin can be so calm about dangling from such incredible heights. He almost looks bored in some of the pictures. It looks like he’s even clicked a few selfies while balancing himself with just one hand. Some photographs feature his friend Mustang Wanted, another rooftopper who had made an appearance on OC last year.
Rooftopping has been a trend in Russia for quite some time now. Last October, we reported the stunts of Russian daredevil Alexander Rusinov. The 19-year-old’s extreme photographs show him performing headstands on the edges of roofs, putting even Oreshkin’s pictures to shame.
Way back in 2012, ‘Skywalking’, a milder form of rooftopping, was all the rage among Russian youth. It had kids standing at the edges of high buildings and pretending to be at the top of the world. We had pictures of 19-year-old Marat Dupri then, which actually look very safe when compared to Oreshkin and Rusinov!
Photos: Kirill Oreshkin