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Bali to deport Russian national for posing naked on Mt. Agung
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Russian man will be deported from Indonesia after posing with his pants around his ankles on top of Mount Agung, Bali’s highest mountain.
The visa-on-arrival holder, identified only as Yuri, will also be placed on a blacklist that prevents him from returning to the country for at least the next six months.
“He violated norms and showed no respect for our culture,” Bali Law and Human Rights Office head Anggiat Napitupulu told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
A photo of the foreigner posing partially naked on Mount Agung went viral on social media last week.
Anggiat said Yuri had expressed remorse but that he would still be penalized.
“It is a general norm that this should not be done in any place, in any country. There is no excuse,” Anggiat said.
After the post went viral, Yuri posted an apology video and later paid for and took part in a Balinese cleansing ceremony for the mountain.
Anggiat said Yuri had been held at the Ngurah Rai immigration office since Monday.
“After all the paperwork is complete, we will deport him,” he added.
The Bali provincial administration plans to limit tourist access to the island’s mountains, saying excessive tourism has desecrated the slopes the Balinese consider sacred.
Bali Governor Wayan Koster announced on Jan. 30 that the administration would issue a regulation seeking to preserve the sacredness of Bali’s mountains.
He claimed tourism activities on the summits were out of control and said he was following recommendations from Balinese religious leaders.
Nearby residents hold special cleansing rituals whenever an incident occurs they feel could impinge upon the spiritual purity of the mountains.
In 2022, Canadian actor Jeffrey Craigen posted a video of himself dancing naked atop Mount Batur in Bangli, in the center of Bali. He performed a ceremonial dance of New Zealand's Maori culture. The video angered residents, and they held a cleansing ritual in response. Craigen was deported after the incident and blacklisted from Indonesia.
In 2021, a viral, three-minute video showed a Russian couple having sex on top of Mount Batur. It triggered similar responses from locals, although the incident reportedly occurred a year before it went viral.
On Saturday, the Denpasar immigration office in Bali deported two Polish nationals accused of ignoring the strictures of Nyepi (Day of Silence) on Wednesday. They were forced to cancel their plans to continue their backpacking trip to West Nusa Tenggara and Australia after violating the ban on public activities during Nyepi.
During Nyepi, which marks the Caka Lunar New Year, all markets, shops, offices, cafes, bars, restaurants and other public spaces are closed. On the day, Balinese Hindus must abstain from four principal activities, namely lighting fires, working, leaving their family compounds and enjoying entertainment.
Karol Grabinski, 39, and Barbara Karina Walczak, 24, were found eating a meal on a beach in a bale bengong (open-air wooden hut) on Wednesday morning, when pecalang (Balinese traditional guards) patrolled the area. A video of the couple arguing with the pecalang circulated on social media.
The couple were deported to Krakow, Poland, on Saturday from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport via Abu Dhabi. (dre)
