Meet the couple behind the Empire State building climb

When Ivan Kuznetsov wanted to propose, he went big. Really big! The 32-year-old Russian climber did not book a restaurant or plan a sunset moment. Instead, he took his girlfriend Angelina Nikolau, 33, 1,454 feet up the Empire State Building’s antenna and asked her to marry him.

On 1 July, they unfurled a banner with a Hendrix quote: “When the power of love beats the love of power, the world knows peace.” Then Kuznetsov dropped to one knee. The whole city below was watching.

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“Love is like heights,” Nikolau said in the Netflix documentary about them last year. “The fear never goes away. You just get better at facing it.”

They are rooftoppers — professional urban climbers — and they are very good at what they do. Nikolau grew up in a circus family in Moscow, so perhaps that helps. She has the kind of steady nerves you need to stand on the edge of a building and smile for the camera.

Kuznetsov, who goes by Ivan Beerkus online, has the same thing, plus an obsessive drive to keep climbing higher. Together, they have tackled Malaysia’s Merdeka 118 at over 2,200 feet, China’s Goldin Finance 117, and a long list of other structures most of us only see in photographs.

They have built a huge following. Millions of people watch their videos. Social media turned them into celebrities, though “celebrities for breaking into buildings” is a peculiar way to get famous. Their stunts exist in this strange space, which is thrilling to watch online, but genuinely illegal.

This time, the consequences caught up with them. They snuck into the Empire State Building as paying customers, stayed after closing, and breached a security door with tools they had brought.

Police charged them with burglary, reckless endangerment, and criminal mischief. The antenna had to be shut down for 30 minutes before rescue crews could reach the two as it broadcasts radio signals strong enough to hurt people.

Their lawyer says prosecutors overcharged them, that it was “a message of love”.  City officials see it differently, as to them, it was a serious security breach.

But the proposal was real. They got arrested, spent their first night as an engaged couple in separate holding cells, and now they are facing court.

Whether that is romantic or reckless probably depends on who you ask!