Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s Blog, page 425
February 28, 2017
February 27, 2017
Russia’s Extravagant Mobster Cemetery
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Located in the town of Yekaterinburg in Russia, the mobster cemetery—Shirokorechenskoe Cemetery officially—is the home of thousands of ornate gravestones etched with the person buried and, often, their car.
The laser engraved granite puts a modern twist on what look like Mafiosos from 90s movies. The extravagant tombs are often shown full-bodied in sharp suits with cars, gold chains, food, and their girlfriends surrounding them.
CC Peretz Partensky
Yekaterinburg
Though the town of Yekaterinburg went through the same organized crime struggle of other Russian cities in the transition to free markets, the town has become somewhat infamous as the home of many of Russia’s most dangerous mob bosses and hitmen.
One of the graves before the laser-engraving trend./CC Peretz Partensky
The Epitaphs are equally as strange as the artwork:
“Expert at knife-throwing”
“Possessed deadly fist-fighting skills”
“He was only 29 when he died, but he already had a Toyota Celica!”
CC Peretz Partensky
CC Peretz Partensky
All three died on the same job./CC Peretz Partensky
February 26, 2017
February 25, 2017
February 24, 2017
Edna Price, Ripley’s Queen of Sword Swallowers
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Edna Price was born for the circus, getting her start in the sideshow business at 16, her veteran sword swallower uncle, Delno Frtiz, quickly trained her into a star.
He taught her to sword swallow at age 20, and she quickly joined up with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus with her uncle.
While they traveled around, Edna became a true daredevil and darling sideshow performer. It’s even been noted that when she wanted to go out with a boy her uncle didn’t approve of, that she would hide his wooden leg so he couldn’t stop her.
Though her uncle passed in 1925, Edna stuck with the circus and eventually became close friends with Major Mite and Harry Houdini.
The Odditorium and Ripley
Edna was one of the first “human oddities” featured at Robert Ripley’s Odditorium during the 1934 Chicago World’s Fair.
In 1937 she began swallowing neon tubes. The charged glass tubes glowed brightly enough to shine through her throat, and Robert Ripley proclaimed her the “Queen of Sword Swallowers”
The neon tubes did break on accident on occasion, but never while she was performing.
Edna was also able to swallow 12 swords at a time for Odditorium visitors, removing them one at a time.
She would go on to perform at Ripley’s New York Odditorium for the 1939-40 World’s Fair and at Coney Island before retiring from sword swallowing to work at Ripley’s Believe It or Not! in Atlantic City as a hostess.
February 23, 2017
World Sword Swallower’s Day: Extreme Edition
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
February 25th, 2017 marks this year’s World Sword Swallower’s day! That Saturday at participating Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditoriums, sword swallowers from around the world will gather and perform their skill for crowds of onlookers.
Ripley’s has co-sponsored the event since 2009, and we’ve written about it before. But this year, we want to go even bigger with our coverage and talk about some of the more extreme sword swallower’s and sword swallowing events we’ve seen.
FREE SHOW SATURDAY, FEB 25TH!
Find Your Location ->
Pregnant Sword Swallower
Veronica “Jai Le Bait” Hernandez made the news a few years ago when she performed at the Grand Prairie Odditorium while nine months pregnant. Sword swallowing is hard. Being nine months pregnant is hard. Sword swallowing while nine months pregnant is extreme.
The human body is awesome. This is my one opportunity to show off what my body is capable of doing pregnant.
Long Sword
In 2009, Natasha Veruschka set a world record for the longest sword ever swallowed. The sword in question was 58 cm (22.83 in) long. Whether or not the record still stands is something we’ll come back to shortly. But in the meantime, here’s Natasha showing off her exceptional skills for Ripley’s Sword Swallower’s days in 2010. The sword here is 28 in long, and the twist is quite impressive.
FREE SHOW SATURDAY, FEB 25TH!
Find Your Location ->
Red Hot Sword
For most people, sharp things are to be avoided, and fire is to be avoided. Dan Meyer decided to combine the two. The handle of this sword is so hot it’s setting things on fire with a single touch. Dan swallows the sword and gets the handle right up next to his face. Wow!
Dan’s extreme sword swallowing doesn’t end with hot swords. He’s also swallowed curved blades, swords underwater in shark tanks, and even a light saber. Dan is truly one of the more extreme sword swallowers around.
Multiple Swords Swallowed at Once
Chayne “The Space Cowboy” Hultgren is someone else right up at the top of the ranks with Dan. He holds numerous world records and awards for sword swallowing as well as his other extreme stunts.
I mentioned Natasha’s 28-inch sword earlier, but there’s a video of Chayne swallowing a sword with a 72 cm (28.35 in) blade. So it would seem that he holds that record for the time being.
He also holds records for the most swords swallowed at once, and here’s a video of him setting the world record for the most swords swallowed while juggling.
If you’re interested in seeing more of these incredible sword swallowing feats, be sure to drop by your local Ripley’s Odditorium on 2/25 and enjoy the free show.
FREE SHOW SATURDAY, FEB 25TH!
Find Your Location ->
February 22, 2017
Where Are These Mysterious Desert Arrows Pointing?
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
In the remote wastes of America’s deserts, you may run into something strange: a concrete pad in the shape of an arrow.
Hundreds of these mysterious arrows stretch all across America.
What are these desert arrows doing out there and what are they pointing at?
Could they be for calibrating spy satellites like the mysterious desert “X”’s?
America’s Highway of Light
The arrows were originally made to guide airplanes across America’s vast and unsettled frontier.
These arrows were often paired with lighthouse like towers that illuminated the arrows for aerial viewing.
An air mail beacon that has survived intact.
This all came out of a 1922 mandate that the United States Postal service deliver mail by plane. Up until this point, no one thought there was a reliable way to navigate an airplane at night.
At the time, 1 in 10 US mail pilots flying at night died.
The Air Beacon System
Pilots had been using railroad tracks to navigate, but that made trips longer than they needed to be, and could only be tracked in full day or moonlight.
The plane dedicated arrows allowed planes to cut an 83-hour trip from New York to San Francisco down to just 33 hours.
More than Just Directions
The air beacons acted as more than just simple arrows pointing west; many indicated emergency landing fields or the location of destinations in between San Francisco and New York.
By the end of the highway’s construction, 1,550 beacons stretched across 18,000 miles of America.
Disuse and Disrepair
Unfortunately, by the time the highway of light was completed, non-visual navigation aids like radio had made the towers obsolete.
Many of the structures have been torn down or destroyed, but hundreds of arrows remain to mystify hikers and Google Earth enthusiasts.
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