Vitaliy Raskalov: World’s Most Daring Photographer?

It is a cold day in Moscow. The five member group has been standing behind the building for two hours now. From time to time, one of the men clicks a photograph. In a cold Russia, Decembers are bleary and not many are on the streets.  The group is not noticed. The building, Mercury City, is imposing though. It must be, for its construction will soon be complete, and it shall be known as the tallest building in Europe.

In the night, the group is deep in discussion. The building has a multi level security system. There are cameras on every floor. Security guards man the building twenty four hours. Motion detectors have been placed strategically.

“The biggest problem will be to avoid being seen by the construction workers.” These workers are as good as any security. If they catch you entering the premises illegally, they will beat you to pulp.

The group has been watching the building for weeks, mapping the blind spots of the cameras, working out the guards’ walking paths.

The still unfinished Mercury City office and residential tower is some 1100 feet high but that’s not what Vitaliy Raskalov and his group are aiming for. What they want to scale is the wobbling apex of the spire, the top of a rooftop construction crane, 1214 feet above ground. It is called Skywalking – the pursuit of scaling extremely high structures without any proper safety equipment.

So high is the crane in the atmosphere, that it is shrouded in the clouds and is covered with ice. The winds at this height are powerful and enough to blow a man away.

The next day, after breakfast, the group is all set to conquer Europe’s tallest building. They decide to enter at 1130 am during the guards switch over. They have all of fine minutes to complete their illegal heist, before the new set of workers start coming in.

They enter as construction workers, hide and steal their way up, but by the time they reach the base of the crane, two of the men decide to pull out and base jump off the building. Vitaliy, Alexander and a third keep going up, the ice on the crane stinging their hands, the wind biting into their face and trying its hardest to dislodge them and throw them to certain death.

These thrill seekers’ objective is not just to scale the building without safety equipment. It is also to click photographs from such terrifying angles that would send shivers down the spines of anyone looking at these snaps.

They reach the top. Looking down, all that Vitaly sees are clouds and the ice caked crane to some distance. The wind is whistling in his ear, and he can hardly hear what his friends are screaming.  He grips on to the crane tightly with one hand and pumps the fist of the other.

It isn’t the first or the last building that Vitaliy Raskalov and Alexander Remnev will scale in this manner. These two thrill seekers have already climbed to the top of the Russian Academy of Sciences, shooting photos from a precarious plank; and scaled a turret on top of the Kiev railway station again to capture mind-blowing panoramic shots. They were captured by the police earlier for climbing the 1,000-foot-high Russky Island Bridge.

Skywalking in itself has become a fad, a rage in Russia and more and more young men and women are taking to this extremely dangerous sport, pushing themselves to scale terrifyingly steep buildings, without much advance thought to what could happen.

The question is, should such a sport exist? Should we celebrate the achievements of a Vitaliy and an Alexander, men who take fantastic stupendous photographs from unbelievable angles but put their lives in peril to do so. Should we celebrate them knowing that doing so might make them mini celebrities and an example for others to follow, to risk their lives. Even if one person dies trying to do what Vitaliy has done, could his or her family ever recover from such a terrible loss. Or should we condemn Vitaliy for breaking the law, for breaking rules, for being a misfit, for putting others’ life at stake

It is difficult to take a side. Difficult to criticize him when what he does is so aesthetically pleasing. The world loves a misfit, loves the reckless, loves one who will not care for his life to pursue something that is beautiful. So what should we do?

The point is, that the world needs a Vitaliy Raskalov, needs an Alexander Remenov. For the world needs mavericks as much as it needs sensible and practical men. It needs an adventurer as much as it needs a doctor. It needs a Michael Angelo as much as it needs an Einstein, a Sherlock as much as a Madam Curie. We do need a Don Quixote in pursuit of his ladylove Dulcinea. The world needs its Robin Hood.

With his photographs, Vitaliy brings art and sport together. He might be a law breaker, but he is also a genius. He might be causing a lot of people unrest, but he is doing what few men or women have the courage to attempt. He has the power to make us gasp, overwhelmingly so, and that quality is not found in many men.

We live in a relatively boring age. The age of exploration and discovery have long left us. Scott, Shackleton, Hillary, Amundsen, those courageous men who stepped into the unknown, travelled over sea for months at a stretch, trudged on ice through storms, risked their lives, and helped mankind chart new borders in geography, science, biology, have now become chapters of history. We live in a century where we spend more time on a computer than being out there.  Vitaliy goes beyond all that and more.

A few months back, Vitaliy Raskalov and Alexander Remenov waited for visiting hours to be over before climbing the Great Pyramids of Giza and sat there for a while, before taking some spectacular photographs. Of course we should be furious, for it is a world heritage monument, possibly the most famous in the world, and it deserves a little more respect.

Tutankhamen might not mind it too much though.  Enjoy the images.