A 23-year-old woman in the Siberian city of Novokuznetsk has become an online celebrity in Russia after jumping into an ice-hole in a Siberian river while attached to ropes via hooks embedded in her spine.
Ksenia Smirnova performed the stunt almost totally naked in -11 C (12.2 F), which is relatively mild for a Siberian winter.
She says it was not her first attempt at suspension jumping, as she jumped with hooks embedded into her back more than a year ago, but she didn’t like it then.
After that first attempt she decided that she would go for it one more time. It was not for fun, but “some kind of an interesting idea,” she said an interview with the Russian Komsomolskaya Pravda daily.
The ‘interesting’ idea, i.e. jumping into an ice hole, came from Andrey Efremov, the organizer and founder of the “Zemlya Pryzhkov” (The World of Jumping) team, which specializes in various types of rope jumping.
“That was my idea. We were waiting for freezing temperatures for almost a year. It was done for the first time in history, as far as I know,” Efremov said, stressing that it was incredibly hard to fulfill the plan. It took them two days to cut through the ice as it was 60cm thick.
However, it was not the only obstacle in their way to creating history.
Ksenia had to be very precise while plunging from the 15-meter high Ilyinsky Bridge into a small, 3-meter diameter hole. The first attempt was unsuccessful, as the brave Siberian didn’t make it to the ice hole because of undershooting, but she managed to accomplish the trick at the second attempt.
“I feel moral satisfaction,” Ksenia told Komsomolskaya Pravda, adding that her motivation was to understand the feelings of people who do suspension jumps and enjoy this type of activity.
Her venture sparked a vivid online discussion. Some commented that the move of the extreme sports enthusiast from Novokuznetsk was plain masochistic and crazy. The others, however, argued that Ksenia was a brave girl and the jump was well done.
Responding to the online attacks, Smirnova said: “Everything's relative,” reminding those who found her activities insane, that “some time ago tattoos and piercing seemed to be something out of the ordinary, but people got used to it, and now it is considered to be quite usual.”
Suspension BASE Jumping is a type of extreme sport rising in popularity among adrenaline addicts. It basically combines bungee jumping and parachuting with body piercing.