Extreme hide-and-seek

A childhood classic gets an unbearably Zoomer spin on YouTube

You loved playing hide-and-seek as a kid, but you never experienced the game as Russian YouTubers have popularized it. “Extreme hide-and-seek” has become one of the most popular subgenres on Russian-language YouTube, where vloggers have attracted tens of millions of views by filming themselves hiding and seeking in empty waterparks, underground bunkers, abandoned buildings, and more. (This kind of thing has its fans in the West, as well.) Whole teams of people are involved in these spectacles, always escalating or tweaking the rules to make the competition even more outlandish. Seekers have dressed as SWAT police and killer clowns and even launched fleets of drones to track down their prey. One YouTube channel even married the game with a Nerf war. Meduza collected a handful of Russia’s extremest extreme hide-and-seeks.

Hide-and-seek in an empty waterpark

Hide-and-seek with SWAT police in an abandoned building

Hide-and-seek with a killer clown at an amusement park

Hide-and-seek in an underground fallout bunker

Hide-and-seek in a castle

Hide-and-seek with drones

Hide-and-seek in a soccer stadium

Hide-and-seek with Nerf guns

Hide-and-seek with “coffins” (they’re just boxes)