Two drunk women climbed one of Poland’s best-known fountains in the middle of the night to steal a sword from a naked statue.
The sword was plastic.
The pair were filmed staggering around University Square in Wroclaw in the early hours of Saturday 11 July before turning their attention to the Szermierz fountain, home to the city’s famous bare fencer.
READ MORE: My Porsche ploughed into two bikes and two cars at high speed – I told police a POTHOLE did it
CCTV footage shows one woman hoisting the other into the wet basin so she could wrestle the blade free from the statue’s grip.
City guards were watching the whole thing unfold on live cameras.
They arrived while the heist was still in progress.
One arrest, one escape
Officers detained a 24-year-old woman at 3.30am.
Her accomplice ran and has not been caught.
The clip has since racked up close to a million views on Facebook, along with hundreds of comments from people who could not quite believe what they were watching.
Wroclaw officials were less entertained.
A City Hall spokesperson said: “This wasn’t just daft, it was a hair’s breadth from disaster.”
“The fountain bowl is curved and slippery; a bad fall from that height could leave someone paralysed for life.”
A £120 souvenir
The sword itself is a replica, fitted specifically because people keep trying to nick the original.
It was damaged during the theft, and the 24-year-old now faces charges for theft and damaging public property.
Replacing the blade costs around £120 (PLN 600), before fitting costs and whatever fine the courts add on top.
The spokesperson had a view on the economics: “Worth it for a plastic sword? No chance.”
They added that drunk revellers attempt the same stunt with some regularity, and the cameras find them within minutes. Every time.
The fencer statue has stood on University Square since 1904 and has spent much of that time being climbed by students who should know better.
Why It Matters
The most-watched piece of content to come out of Wroclaw this month was shot by a municipal CCTV operator.
Cities are sitting on a constant stream of accidental viral footage, and clips like this one routinely outperform anything a creator could stage.
For anyone working in the viral video space, official security footage remains one of the most reliable, and least licensable, sources of raw material going.
Institutional clips going viral is now a pattern rather than a novelty, with councils, transport networks and police forces all finding their footage doing bigger numbers than their press releases ever did.
The second woman is still out there. So, presumably, is the appetite for climbing wet statues at 3am.
