Daring Photographers Climb the 1,260-Foot Shun Hing Tower in Shenzhen

Photography Tips

Just in case you’ve started to feel comfortable, sitting all cozy on the Earth’s surface, this video may startle you into a frightful spiral of vertigo in less than three minutes. It features three Russian photographers climbing the Shun Hing Tower—the third tallest tower in Shenzhen, China, and 28th tallest in the world—with no safety precautions whatsoever:

If all this sounds familiar—Russian kids, Chinese towers, DSLRs—that’s because one of the climbers, Vitaliy Raskalov, was half of a two-man climbing team that scaled the Shanghai Tower (China’s tallest structure) in February 2014. That video went viral, garnering more than 50 million YouTube views.

This climb is more modest by comparison, but still a sketchy affair. The three daredevils enter the building wearing white dust masks and carrying miscellaneous bags, looking enough like official construction workers that nobody questions them when they find a route up the stairwells to the roof, then climb the 59-meter spire at its peak. But watching it still makes your palms sweat.