Signs warning people about the danger of climbing on roofs will be installed on many buildings in Moscow by the end of the summer, news website Moskva24 reported.
City authorities decided to erect the signs after a spike in the number of people climbing the city's roofs as well as a number of posts appearing on social media of people trying to take selfies “with a bird's eye view.”
“Most of the signs will be installed on fire escapes; we are in the process of working on the text,” Maxim Derugin, head of the Arbat district in central Moscow told Moskva24. “We know about the existence of roofers.”
The first signs are slated to appear on 5 Smolenskaya embankment and the “book buildings” on Novy Arbat.
Authorities say the move will help reduce the number of deaths resulting from climbs.
Last year, a fifth-grade schoolgirl died after falling from a roof in the Moscow suburbs, and in July, a young woman fell to her death from a bridge in the Moscow City financial district. Investigators concluded that she was trying to take a selfie, Moskva24 reported.
Police are currently looking for roof climbers who managed to make it to the top of the Stalin-era skyscraper on Kudrinskaya square — one of the “Seven Sisters” — last week, Moskva24 reported.
Last year, Russia issued an international arrest warrant for a Kiev-based extreme climber accused of painting the spire of a Moscow landmark skyscraper in Ukrainian colors and hanging a Ukrainian flag from it, but Ukrainian authorities refused to hand the climber over.
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