As reported on Wired.
BY JAKOB SCHILLER
Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield needed special effects to help them hang off buildings in the Spider-Man movies. Not Mustang Wanted. That’s the pseudonym of a 26-year-old Ukrainian man who’s taken the internet by storm with the photos and videos he’s posted of himself doing death-defying stunts on top of tall buildings, bridges and cranes around Eastern Europe.
“For me it’s a sport,” he told Wired via Skype.
Climbing tall structures and taking pictures is a growing fad in Russia and has been dubbed “skywalking” by some. Young men including Max Polazov and Alexander Remnev were media darlings last year. But Mustang Wanted has re-excited the masses. His Facebook page has more than ten thousand likes and he’s been answering questions from press and fans around the world.
In an effort to capitalize on his fame, he’s offering to take companies’ logos with him when he climbs or offering his skills up for the movies.
“Everyone will notice your logo, when it’s 700 ft closer to the sky!” he wrote on his website. “Want to have a special extreme video on some crazy bridge or building in your country? Hell yeah, I’m looking straight for you!”
Before he will hire himself out, however, he says that he needs photos and videos of the structure you want him to climb and “also some info about local police and laws. Don`t want to go into jail, you know what I mean:-)”
There is no doubt some, most or all the stunts he’s pulled are illegal and there is at least one reference to him getting arrested on his Facebook page.
“Fear doesn’t exist. And I’m not afraid,” he wrote in a Facebook comment. “Death – is not the worst. Everyone dies but not everyone lives the way they want. You can die anywhere at any time. If you afraid of everything, you must live in a sterile laboratory.”
All we know about the young man is that he lives in Kiev and that he worked as a legal adviser or in the financial sector (there have been conflicting reports). He said he’s been working on his climbing and acrobatic skills since he was young. He wouldn’t provide his name.
When we questioned him whether he had any buildings or landmarks he really wanted to climb he said, “I do not think about it. Improvisation. I am interested in all buildings.”