Homeless Russian man rescued after finding himself in the soup

A homeless man in Russia had to be rescued after getting wedged in a ventilation shaft having been lured inside by the smell of traditional Russian beetroot soup.

The man from the Siberian city of Barnaul reportedly crawled four floors down a ventilation tube after coming across a whiff of borscht on February 14, The Moscow Times reports.

In hot pursuit of the soup, the man, who has not been named, became stuck when he reached the ventilator's head, finding it was just 60cm wide and 40cm deep.

Emergency services were called after nearby residents heard him yelling for help.

"He was yelling, 'Save me, help me, I'm choking,'" said Nikita Sergeyev, who lives in a nearby apartment block.

Rescuers initially tried to lower a rope down to the man, but as he'd gone in head first he couldn't reach it.

They were then forced to smash through the walls with sledgehammers to get him out, working through the wall in a destructive process of trial-and-error until they found him.

He had neatly folded his shirt and put away his shoes before diving into the shaft, rescuers said.

The visibly disorientated man initially said he had been thrown down the ventilation tube by his brother, before confessing he'd clambered into the pipes in pursuit of soup.

Source: The Moscow Times