Roofing in Russia

Have you been wondering how those amazing photos looking over Russian cities from above were taken? Not from planes or drones, but “roofers.”

In Russia, roofers are not people that put roofs on buildings, but those that scale extraordinary heights to sit on roofs. The activity has become a huge trend in Russia thanks to relaxed punishments for trespassing, one of the major reasons roofers are deterred in other countries.

The pioneers of roofing started taking advantage of social media to publish photo evidence of their exploits, and their images have been known to rack up thousands of likes on Instagram and attract new practitioners to the sport. It’s now possible to travel to Moscow or St. Petersburg and book in with a roofing guide, who will take you to some iconic spots and can even arrange a romantic rooftop picnic.

Of course the easier-to-access spots are not as extreme as some, but it offers visitors a chance to get inside a remarkable trend that has developed. Russian roofers have been traveling around the world spreading the word, climbing huge buildings such as the unfinished Shanghai Tower in China.

Watching the videos is enough to make palms sweat, so it’s difficult to imagine being so high above the ground with no safety equipment or harnesses. Two of the most famous roofers, Vitaliy Raskalov and Vadim Makhorov, maintain a website where you can keep up with their latest exploits from around the world.