Instagram influencer jailed for climbing one of the Pyramids of Giza to get a selfie
An American-Russian Instagram influencer recently revealed to his followers that he’d spent several days in an Egyptian jail after being arrested for climbing one of the pyramids of Giza. Instagram influencer jailed
Ironically, Vitaly Zdorovetskiy uploaded a picture about a week ago where he bragged that he was going to take over Egypt. Several days later, he revealed that he had been arrested.
Instagram influencer jailed
“No words can explain what I just went through the past five days,” Zdorovetskiy wrote alongside a picture that appears to show him sitting on top of one of the pyramids.
“I was locked up in Egypt because I climbed the Pyramids of Giza,” he continued. “I’ve been in Jail many times but this one was by far the very worst. I saw horrible things and I don’t wish this upon anybody.”
Oddly, after commenting about how horrible his experience in jail was, he added: “Was it worth it? F— YEAH! I did it for a good cause and soon I’m going to share the whole video so the whole world can see.”
The post has received over 192,000 likes and over 2,000 comments (although many of the comments are just made up of laughing faces or flame emojis).
Egypt’s parliament recently imposed harsher penalties for climbing the pyramids, saying that anybody who is found climbing “any antiquity” without the proper permit will face “at least one month’s imprisonment and/or a fine of not less than EGP 10,000 ($630.57) and not more than EGP 100,000 ($6,305.69)”
By that yardstick, Zdorovetskiy got off easy with only 5 days. His girlfriend and fellow influencer Kinsey Wolanski got off even easier a month ago after pulling off the same stunt.
A video posted to Wolanski and Zdorovetskiy’s Instagram accounts follows the entire encounter, which ends with Wolanski being released by authorities after some money allegedly changed hands.
There didn’t seem to be any point to Wolanski’s climb, and while we’re still waiting to find out what Zdorovetskiy’s “cause” was, it’s important to note that none of this is out of character for the influencer. He was arrested in 2014, 2016, and 2017 for running onto the field at various major sporting events, usually in order to promote his x-rated website Vitaly Uncensored.
Egyptian authorities have not said if there will be any further consequences for Zdorovetskiy, but it seems likely he’ll be banned from entering the country ever again. This is what happened to 18-year-old German tourist Andrej Ciesielski in 2016 after a video of his Great Pyramid climb went viral.
