One of the most popular winter activities is tubing, or more commonly known as cheesecake riding. No special skills required, suitable for both adults and children. It is loved by almost everyone. In addition to trauma doctors. Every winter, dozens of people with bruises, broken bones and traumatic brain injuries come straight to them from the hills. This is if they are still alive.
New example. On January 21, a 13-year-old schoolboy was sliding down a homemade slide in Vladivostok. The “Vatrushka” missed and the child with rapid speed crashed into the wall of the house. He was diagnosed with brain damage and a skull fracture. And the next day, complications appeared – facial nerve rupture. Doctors are now doing everything they can to help the boy.
But Roman from the village of Verkhnepogromnoye, Volgograd region, could no longer help.
In early January, he went out happily with friends. We walked around the village, joking around. At one point, they took a wheel of cheese and tied it to the car. Roma stepped into the tube, his friend taking the wheel. The result of the race was terrible: at high speed, the “dumpling” began to slide, on the “speed bump” it jumped up and crashed into a metal fence. Roman died on the spot from a strong blow to the head…
According to the new GOST, the tube slide cannot be higher than seven meters
Buying a tube is easy. They are sold in any stores and markets, at an affordable price – from 600 rubles. And when cold weather sets in, their happy owners are ready to ski anywhere – from natural slopes to icy steps. If only it were fun. And few people think that a projectile rushing at great speed, at the moment of descent, begins to spin violently, uncontrollably, and the driver will not be able to stop if there are obstacles ahead.
You can crash into a tree, be run over by a car, or fall through the ice if spontaneous pipes are installed on the riverbank.
“Vatrushki” is considered the most dangerous horse riding equipment. “It is advisable to completely abandon them, but if you still decide, it is important to follow the safety rules,” says Alexander Grigoriev, a freelance pediatric specialist, traumatologist-orthopedist of the Ministry of Health of the Moscow Region and head physician of the Moscow Region Children's Clinical Orthopedic and Traumatological Hospital.
You can't tie a tube to a car or slide down a slide on a springboard because the bullet will bounce hard when it lands. It is forbidden to slide down slopes with dense trees and bushes; There must be no holes, hills, rocks, fences or any other obstacles when descending. But for some extreme sports enthusiasts, these bans are more like a guide to action.
Evgenia Bortsova from Khabarovsk is a mother of two boys and she admits that she is sometimes horrified by the dangerous games children play. One of her sons is only 11 years old, he often goes out alone with friends and at these times one can only hope that the warning conversations are not in vain.
– In the park next to our house there is an equipped track where you can eat “cheesecake” and cycle under the supervision of an instructor. But it gets paid. Sometimes I observe how children ski on slopes fenced only with trees. And often not even alone but with their parents,” says Evgenia. – In the same park, there is a concrete bridge over a pond with two tunnels throughout. Both children and adults ski from the slope next to it every winter. And the trajectory is dangerous! If you cannot slow down or move right in front of the bridge and drive clearly through the arch, you will end up in the concrete.
GOST R 72482-2025, approved by Rosstandart at the end of last year “Equipment and coverings for children's playgrounds. Tubular slides. Additional safety requirements and test methods,” aims to restore order. He was the first to define the ideal tube slide. You cannot make it higher than seven meters, the average angle of inclination is no more than 20 degrees, and the maximum – on any individual section of the route – 25 degrees. If the slide is more than one meter high, a limit bar is required at the starting point. There are requirements for the slope of the stairs, the shape of the slide, the location of the stairs…
“Unified requirements make it possible to build a comprehensive approach to ensuring the safety of children's entertainment equipment,” said Anton Shalaev, head of Rosstandart.
The new standard will take effect on February 1, 2026, at the end of the current winter season. This means that the currently open slides were made without taking him into account. How did they test then?
The head of the testing laboratory of the Interregional Certification Center LLC, Viktor Smolin, explains: which standard determines the requirements for a particular slide depends on how exactly the manufacturer classifies it.
– If it is determined that the device belongs to the category of “sliding type non-motorized attraction”, then the general requirements of EAEU TR 038/2016 “Technical Regulations of the Eurasian Economic Union “On the safety of attractions” and GOST 33807-2016 “Safety of attractions” will apply. General requirements, “says Smolin.
In this case, the attraction must undergo state registration with the State Technical Supervision Agency, as well as certification or declaration. “Slides with launch pads located above eight meters above ground level must be certified, and if lower, they must be declared,” explains Nikolai Rozov, an expert in confirming product conformity with the certification agency MSC LLC.
The manufacturer may also classify the slide as children's playground equipment, defining it as a multi-level maze. Or classify it as ski resort equipment. In these cases, different rules apply.
– There is hope that the introduction of special GOST will tighten the requirements for this equipment and streamline the range of sliders that are currently flooding the Russian market. Specifying design, installation and maintenance requirements will minimize injuries, concludes Viktor Smolin.
Many of the requirements of the new GOST for pipelines are probably taken from GOST R 56987-2016, effective from February 1, 2017, “Safety of amusement equipment. Winter slides. Safety requirements for operation.” It applies to winter slides made of wood, ice or a combination of both. However, this standard does not set requirements for downhill routes on natural terrain that do not use wood and ice. And what's more, there's no material that can be applied to places that aren't meant for skiing at all. And accidents often happen there.
