Ontheroofs is an

urban exploration Urban exploration (often shortened as UE, urbex, and sometimes known as roof and tunnel hacking) is the exploration of manmade structures, usually abandoned ruins or hidden components of the manmade environment. Photography and historical inte ...

and rooftopping photography project conceived by Vitaliy Raskalov () and Vadim Makhorov (), from Ukraine and from Russia respectively. Their main focus of photography is the exploration of high-rise architectural structures like skyscrapers, bridges, historic sites and cathedrals. The team have been notable for their number of free-climbs up famous buildings and monuments around the world. Typically, their videos are uploaded onto

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

and showcase their ascent and descent. Raskalov and Makhorov appeared as recurring cast in the documentary series '' URBEX – Enter At Your Own Risk'', which launched globally on Red Bull TV on August 1, 2016.

Members

The project was conceived by Vitaliy Raskalov. Raskalov grew up in

Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

, but at the age of 12, he moved to Moscow, where he would later study journalism, but drop out in 2009 to become a photographer. He met Makhorov, who is from

Novosibirsk Novosibirsk is the largest city and administrative centre of Novosibirsk Oblast and the Siberian Federal District in Russia. As of the 2021 Russian census, 2021 census, it had a population of 1,633,595, making it the most populous city in Siber ...

, while climbing a bridge. In 2017, Raskalov and Makhorov expanded the team to include the New-York based rooftopper Emit, known as em.1t across social media platforms.

Climbs

In 2012, the duo climbed the

Mercury City Tower Mercury City Tower () is a supertall skyscraper located on plot 14 in the Moscow International Business Center (MIBC), in Moscow, Russia. Occupying a total area of , the mixed-use building houses offices, apartments, a fitness center, and r ...

in Moscow. Raskalov and Makhorov received press attention in early 2014 when they climbed up the

Shanghai Tower The Shanghai Tower is a 128-story, megatall skyscraper located in Lujiazui, Pudong, Shanghai.

, the second tallest building in the world. They entered the construction site of the unfinished tower during the Lunar New Year. The popularity of the video sparked a discussion on the safety and the liability of the incident. Later in 2014, they hijacked an LED billboard on the roof of a Hong Kong building, advertising their Shanghai climb on the billboard. In April 2016, a video was posted of them climbing the

Lotte World Tower Lotte World Tower (), is a 123-story, supertall skyscraper, located in Sincheon-dong, Songpa District, Seoul, South Korea. It is the sixth-tallest building in the world, the tallest in OECD countries and in South Korea, and also the firs ...

Seoul Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...

. Despite the construction site having guard dogs, security officers and monitoring drones, Raskalov and Makhorov managed to bypass the security and climb the under construction building. In 2017, Raskalov and Emit climbed the

Central Park Tower Central Park Tower is a residential supertall skyscraper at 225 West 57th Street, along Billionaires' Row, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, New York, U.S. Designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, the build ...

. Other structures climbed by Raskalov are the

Eiffel Tower The Eiffel Tower ( ; ) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower from 1887 to 1889. Locally nicknamed "''La dame de fe ...

, the

Great Pyramid of Giza The Great Pyramid of Giza is the largest Egyptian pyramid. It served as the tomb of pharaoh Khufu, who ruled during the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt, Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom of Egypt, Old Kingdom. Built , over a period of about 26 years ...

and the

statue of Christ the Redeemer ''Christ the Redeemer'' (, standard ) is an Art Deco statue of Jesus in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, created by French-Polish sculptor Paul Landowski and built by Brazilian engineer Heitor da Silva Costa, in collaboration with French engineer Alber ...

. In 2019, they Travelled to the Baikonur Cosmodrone in Southern Kazakhstan and uploaded the video of it to their YouTube channel.

References

External links

*{{official website, ontheroofs.com Photography by genre Urban exploration 21st-century Russian photographers