This zorbing ride without safety was just falling with extra steps

In early 2013, two men climbed into a zorbing ball at a Russian ski resort, trusting that someone, somewhere, had thought through the safety implications of rolling humans downhill inside a giant inflatable sphere. No one had.

“The Dombay Zorbing Disaster” unfolded with grim inevitability. The attraction was unlicensed, unregulated, and operated without meaningful safety oversight. Once released, the zorb did not gently roll. It accelerated, veered off course, and plunged into a ravine. What was sold as novelty thrill-seeking became a deadly lesson in how quickly spectacle collapses when basics are treated as optional.

The lesson of the Dombay Zorbing Disaster is not that zorbing is inherently deadly. It is that physics does not care about your intentions. When safety is not thought through, this is the natural outcome.