Mystery Driver Takes Joyride on Moscow Airport Runway During 'First Snowfall' of the Year
Snow-covered is one of the styles that Moscow arguably wears best. One local was so excited to see the slight pile-up of the year that he took to the nearest airport to drive and drift along the runway.
The video of a mystery driver, skidding through the snow and making circular patterns on the ground with a luggage and cargo truck at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport is getting thousands of views in Russia. The driver zips in between other moving vehicles on the runway and around jets, while some bewildered colleagues drive past either to unload landing jets, or help prepare planes for takeoff.
The clip of the winter joyride in front of two Aeroflot passenger planes first appeared on the Facebook page of Russian lawmaker Maxim Ivanov, a member of ruling party United Russia, on Tuesday. "The guy is drifting," a voice is heard saying, during the clip. The small stunt show lasts about two minutes and ends as the vehicle drives out of view across the runway. Several national TV channels have since broadcast the clip and users have been sharing it on social media. The viral clip is now prompting many to wonder who the unidentified thrill seeker behind the wheel is.
"This is how employees at Sheremetyevo airport celebrate the first snow," Ivanov, who recorded the video on his phone from behind the window at his airport gate, wrote in the caption. "Good thing they did not damage the airplane. Formula One can take a break," he joked.
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Although entertaining, the footage of the frosty escapade on the tracks of the busy runway, was no laughing matter for the airport. Asked about the driver's identity, airport spokesman Roman Genis assured Russian business channel RBC that the person in question was not airport staff but gave nothing else away. He did not provide any additional information about whether or not he even knew who the driver was or explain how someone who is not employed by Sheremetyevo came to operate the cargo truck on the runway.
Fans of the Russian capital in the snow will probably get more and far less hazardous opportunities to celebrate over the next few months as November is when the average temperatures hit freezing. The first flutter of snowflakes in the air breezed through Moscow last month, but as temperatures dip into December, it has started to stick more and more.
Parts of Russia experienced a freak first snowfall as early as August this year after a dismal summer of changing weather and big rainfall. Large swathes of the country that are much more predisposed to winter climes are already piled up with snow. Earlier in the year, video and gifs of Russian schoolchildren in Siberia's Yakutsk, one of Earth's coldest cities, braving the freezing gales to come home from class, went viral across Russia.
