Ukrainian urban climber Grigory, famous online with the avatar Mustang Wanted, has confessed he painted the star on one of Moscow’s iconic Stalin-era skyscrapers in the colors of the Ukrainian flag.
The man posted the confession on his accounts in social networks,
including Facebook and Russian VKontakte, which mostly feature
the climber’s scaling achievements in various parts of the world.
Mustang Wanted is an addict of extreme urban climbing, also known
as “roofing”, which is all about climbing high-rise
buildings and performing stunts on them, mostly without safety
equipment.
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“I’m that person who in an outburst of sincere patriotic
feelings climbed the roof of the high-rise Kotelnicheskaya
Embankment Building and repainted the star on top of it in the
colors of our dear Ukrainian flag, and then also raised a flag of
independent Ukraine. I have photo and video evidence of
that,” the post reads.
Grigory attached a selfie of himself with the painted star as
proof of his words. He says painting the star was a long and
tiresome process, which took him the whole night.
“I consider what I did an art performance and dedicate it to
Ukraine’s Independence Day,” he wrote.
The climber and blogger said he had to make the confession for
the sake of the four young Russian people currently under
investigation and house arrest over the incident. They were
detained next to the building carrying mountaineering gear on the
day the star was painted.
The group – two men and two women – have denied guilt, explaining
they were base-jumpers, climbing different sorts of high premises
to jump from them using parachutes.
Police say they are looking into the online confession.
“Moscow police are checking the information, posted in one of
the social networks by a person claiming his involvement in the
vandalistic actions at the Kotelnicheskaya Embankment
Building,” the police press service told Itar-Tass.
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The top of the yellow star over the 176-meter-tall
Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Building was painted blue on August
20, making the landmark resemble the yellow-blue Ukrainian
national flag.
A Ukrainian flag was also set on top of the star. After several
hours, a maintenance crew removed the flag from the skyscraper
and restored the initial golden color of the star.
The Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Building is one of the seven
high-rise buildings in Moscow (sometimes referred to as the Seven
Sisters), built after WWII under Joseph Stalin’s rule. The
skyscrapers are among the Russian capital’s major landmarks.