British teenagers are currently doing their A-Levels meaning all eyes are on them from worried parents and teachers. But, one place is letting their teens go all out – and it’s lead to a festival of rude dares, shocking pranks and even nudity.
For three weeks, from April to May each year, 17 and 18 year olds dress up in colourful outfits to ride around in themed buses that cost tens of thousands of pounds and drink so much alcohol they’d rival any fresher’s week. During the mad tradition – which allegedly dates back to 1905 – students will enjoy the mother of all benders.
Frankly, we’re not sure most adults could hack it. During the wild weeks of boozing local firefighters come out to blast teenagers with their firehoses and participants dunk younger students in water.
One participant said tasks include pole dancing on a street lamp for five minutes in a crowded place, reading "loudly and with passion from a porn magazine when a teacher asks you about something in class" and having "sex in the woods".
READ MORE: Bonkers Russian festival sees hundreds of half naked women ski down mountain
You might also be urged to sit through a whole class in your underwear, reports the Mirror, eat a Big Mac in just two bites, "eat a whole bag of Cheese doodles, then go make out with someone who doesn't know about it" or simply break up with your partner (ouch). We can see why you might need to down some shots to perform!
Other teenagers said they had been dared to spend the night outside, ask strangers for condoms and crawl through a shopping centre on all fours "like a dog". Two students were even made to wear loaves of bread instead of shoes for a day…
On top of the dares the celebrations – which take place in Norway – include hiring a big bus with a huge sound system to drive around the country in, showing off the elaborate decorations and paintwork revellers cover them in.
The most eye-catching buses can cost an enormous £100,000 although the teens split the costs.
The 17 and 18 year olds must pool all of their resources for the obscene displays and even parents have to chuck in what they can to pay for the buses. Even with a £17 minimum wage in the nation it’s a big ask.
When the decorated buses have been paid for they drive around before eventually making their way into the woods where the youngsters go all out with blow-out parties filled with alcohol and wild antics. The tradition is known as russefeiring or russ tradition.
Patricia Svendsen, a former student in Norway, previously told news.com.au: "The school year starts in August and you immediately start planning Russ. There are pre-Russ parties all the way until May.
"It’s pretty epic. Some kids save money, or get tons of money from their parents, and then they go ahead and buy themselves a bus — a whole bus. And then they style the inside of it as awesome as possible, buy the biggest speakers they can and get someone to spray paint the outside."
However, despite it being a long-standing tradition, some people take issue with the teens' antics, taking to social media to complain about the noise and mess during the event.
"Why has it become normalised that russ celebrations have become synonymous with bothering people?" one unhappy person wrote on Reddit this year.
"Every g*****n night for weeks up to May 17 this madness continues. It's supposed to be a curfew between 11pm and 6am. So why can't the police stop this?
"The russ drive around and around the residential areas here every single night, solely to bother people. It is not reasonable to simply believe that people should stop sleeping for one month straight. The police don't give a s***."
Another added: "Boring advice: Call the police every time. This is disorderly conduct, which is punishable. This gives you reason to call them every time it happens. Then they may not do anything about it, but that's their business, you report. Then you get your neighbours to do the same.
"Give it a week of 5 calls every night and the log will start to show that there is a problem. One grumpy guy, one night, is not a problem. That's 20-30 grumpy posts in the log in a week."
The Norwegian festivities aren't the only unusual traditions within Europe. Thousands of party-mad skiers and snowboarders gather in the Altai mountains and get their kit off for an 'end of winter' event each year.
Snaps of ski and snowboard fans in bikinis, speedos and bum-baring swimsuits flood Instagram each spring as Russians celebrate the end of ski season without any clothes on. Each year, crazy tourists descend on the area to watch hundreds of bikini-wearing women descend from Green Mount.
Meanwhile in the UK, in a tradition going back 200 years, Brits at the annual cheese rolling festival throw a large wheel of cheese down a very steep hill. Then, they all launch themselves after it!
The Coopers Hill festival in Gloucester, Cotswolds embrace the tradition each year and youngsters vy it out to be the first to catch the cheese. Unfortunately, due to the gradient of the hill participants aren’t usually left running for very long as they slip, tumble and fall down the steepest sections. There have been several broken bones in the past so feel free to watch if you’d rather stay uninjured.
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