In what has become a holiday tradition in Russia’s third-largest city, a viral penis-shaped ice rink has re-opened for the third year running.
The ice-skating from Novosibirsk first went viral when photographer Slava Stepanov published an aerial photo of the rink’s phallic shape in 2019.
Officials were quick to deny that any intentions behind the shape of the ring.
“Honestly, both this year and last year, the shape of the ice rink was the last thing we were thinking about," Novosibirsk Mayor Anatoly Lokot told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency last year.
"We thought about the space and maximizing the territory that can be occupied by the ice rink in order not to create crowding," he said.
The ice rink has turned into a popular topic of conversation every holiday season.
Last year, prominent Russian journalist and YouTuber Yury Dud applauded the rink’s shape.
“This is what I understand — the power of Siberia!”
A song about the rink was also performed on popular late-night talk show “Evening Urgant.”
One local young woman even got a tattoo of the ice rink in a gesture of hometown pride. The tattoo shows the ice rink, with a pair of ice skates hanging below it, surrounded by the words “Thank God I’m from Novosibirsk.”
