But Matera has recently been in the spotlight in a different way, after a London-based parkour group performed stunts there, destroying historic buildings in the process.
The stunt comes amid growing scrutiny of the damage that human activity, from tourists to influencers, street artists and athletes, is doing to historic cities and monuments, as many cities take measures to curb overtourism. Ban visitors to specific hotspots Because bad behaviour was reported.
In Matera, traceurs – the name for people who practice parkour, a form of exercise that involves jumping, running and climbing to move on top of buildings – filmed themselves performing stunts on top of buildings and knocking over protruding stones.
“Hide the evidence,” a voice can be heard from behind the camera instructing team members. video It was published in April by Team Phat, a parkour group active around the world.
Neither the city, UNESCO nor Team Phat responded to requests for comment from The Washington Post on Tuesday.
Team Phat was previously Stunts in Venice A man jumped from a building into a canal. Urge the Mayor The group later announced that they had been fined and banned from the city.
23 minute version Video filmed in MateraSo you can hear a member of Team Fat saying, “We’ve been kicked out of Venice and we can never go back, so we’ve come to the closest place to it.”
The video shows the Tracers performing stunts all over Matera, and at the end, one of the Tracers can be heard suggesting to team member Devon McIntosh that they use a rock protruding from the side of a building to jump onto another rooftop.
“It’s stable enough to hang from, but I’m worried it might break,” the person can be heard telling McIntosh. “You’re a little lighter than me, so this might be more of a challenge for you. … Get ready to jump.”
In the video, McIntosh can be seen jumping first onto a rock and then onto the roof on the other side, before two others are seen making the same jump, one of whom appears to remain on the rock. The footage then goes on to say McIntosh jumped again, but the rocks beneath him gave way, causing him to fall to the ground. He shouted into the camera that he had hurt his ankle, then showed what appeared to be injuries to his thigh and elbow.
“We really put too much faith in it,” he says.
a clip A video of the stunt has been viewed 2.4 million times since it was posted to Instagram two weeks ago and has sparked an angry response online, with many users saying parkour practitioners should be more considerate of their surroundings.
“Matera should not be used as a parkour park, even if the place is crazy. Those stones could have been there before the discovery of America or even earlier,” wrote one commenter, an Italian who practices parkour.
“It was really wrong to destroy this rock that would have held a lot of history and pride for the owners and original builders,” said another commenter.
As travel becomes more affordable and accessible, Bad behaviour from visitors is on the rise. Last year, the manager of a villa in northern Italy 150-year-old statue falls According to Reuters, the statue broke when a German tourist tried to take a photo of it. In 2022, tourists from Saudi Arabia will be allowed to visit the statue. Drove a Maserati Two weeks after a bomb was planted and damaged Rome’s world-famous Spanish Steps, police said. American tourists throw electric scooters It went down the Spanish Steps, causing about $27,000 worth of damage. Of damage.
There has also been criticism over the monument’s use as a sports arena, and in 2021 a Singaporean man was charged with wilfully disturbing a national monument. Wakeboarding at the War Memorial In the city-state, according to The Straits Times.
