ANNUAL SIBERIAN GRAVE DIGGING CONTEST

Siberia held its annual Grave Digging contest. The region’s heartiest shovelers showed off their prowess at a crematorium in Russia’s third-largest city of Novosibirsk. The competition, held every year, says its aim is to raise the prestige of the profession, improve grave-diggers’ work performance, and attract groupies – no, attract younger generations to careers in the funeral industry. Each two-man team had to dig a coffin-sized hole with exact dimensions of 200 centimeters long, 80 centimeters wide and 160 centimeters deep. In addition to size and speed, diggers were judged on technique and accuracy. This year, the team from Omsk took home the first-place prize of 30,000 rubles ($400) after setting a new record by digging a grave in under 38 minutes
* What if there’s a tie? Is there a Sudden-Death Digoff?
* Sometimes the contestants get winded, have to lay down, and hilarity ensues.
* Just make sure they’re not digging in an ancient native burial ground.
* They know about backhoes in Siberia, right?