Wild Siberian survival reality show sounds a lot like 'Hunger Games'
Move over Survivor, a Russian entrepreneur is developing Game2: Winter, a reality show throwing 30 people in the Siberian wilderness and seeing if they can survive for nine months all to earn a $1.6 million prize.
The show promises to feature "2000 cameras, 900 hectares and 30 lives," according to its website, with the competition starting July 1, 2017 and continuing until April 1, 2018. Created by Yevgeny Pyatkovsky, it will recruit 15 men and 15 women to take part.
The show has been announced amid a blitz of publicity and multiple reports that the creators will allow "fighting, alcohol, murder, rape, smoking anything."
However, along with that provocative hyperbole, producers add a caveat: Contestants will be subject to Russian laws and police can arrest anyone who commits a crime on the show. So while they seem to be encouraging depraved behavior, it would still be punished.
Nevertheless, it sounds grueling, and pretty similar to the fictional Hunger Games. Participants will carry cameras while thousands more dotted throughout the wilderness will broadcast everything live and apparently 24/7. There is to be no camera crew.
Show producers say survival is "virtually impossible" and list bears, snakes, poisonous berries and mushrooms as some of the natural elements to contend with. Added to that will be sub-zero temperatures and remote locations far from medical help.
"You should also keep in mind that this will be a real forest, with dangerous wildlife and harmful insects."
In the Siberian Times, Pyatkovsky said, "You should also keep in mind that this will be a real forest, with dangerous wildlife and harmful insects. Of course, there will be some safety precautions in place, but it would still take about half an hour to reach the area where the show will take place by helicopter."
On the Russian social media site VK.com the competition's page has been filling up with eager participants since mid-November. The show plans to recruit participants two ways. Either you can pay 10 million rubles (about $160,000) or compete in an online voting system.
To get voted in, you need to have filled out and emailed a form with all your specs, plus photos and a video ("the story should be interesting" the site explains).
The social site also has survival tips and video tutorials, such as a YouTube video showing how to filter water. Participants can bring a limited amount of equipment with them, so now's the time to study up on winter survival tactics.
The show reportedly says they have a 1 billion ruble budget (about $16 million), including the ultimate survivor's prize of $100 million rubles ($1.6 million). If more people make it to the end they will split the prize money. The possibility of bear attacks, hypothermia or starvation is totally worth possibly splitting $1.6 million -- not.
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
