Climbing World’s 2nd Tallest Building Without A Rope

A pair of Russian men have taken scaling skyscrapers to new heights. Vadim Makhorov and Vitaliy Raskalov released footage of their incredible freestyle climb 2000 feet above the ground atop China’s tallest building — and boy, is it tall.

To make matters even more death-defying, the pair climbed the tower without any safety equipment… or permission. “Mum is going be shocked!” they can be heard saying in Russian. The footage details their ascent to the top of the building, including breaking in, scaling walls, breaking through the cloud cover, perilously clinging to grates and flimsy ladders hundreds of feet above the ground and finally, their crowning moment: making it to the very top.

It took the duo two hours to climb the partially constructed Shanghai Tower in China’s Lujiazui district. Neither suffered any injuries during the climb, but they did lose more than a day’s sleep due to the physical and mental effects such a climb has on the body. The building stands at an incredible 2,073 feet tall. The Burj Khalifa, at 2,722 feet, in the UAE is the only building in the world to surpass the height of the Shanghai Tower. In comparison, the new Once World Trade Center in New York stands at a measly 1,776 feet.