Iceman survives burial almost naked in snow grave for 13 minutes in bizarre Valentine’s Day stunt

Oleg, 47 today, from Kaliningrad, dedicated the latest of a number of extreme cold experiments to his wife Irina, who was not present to watch his burial.

Wearing only shorts, he was covered in snow on the hard frozen Lena River - over which water was poured turning into ice.

In front of a media scrum, he lay down on his side in a heart-shaped snow coffin. 

Spadefuls of snow were heaped on top of his almost naked body until he was totally covered. 

Then water was poured into the snow - freezing immediately in the -32C Siberian cold. 

He was then dug out 12 minutes and 52 seconds later by watching staff from Russia’s emergencies ministry. 

At first Oleg could not speak and was seen to shake, which doctors said was a normal reaction to stress, yet he walked back to a building to warm up. 

He soon explained he had been in a ‘trance’.

He then told journalists: 'I inhaled twice when they buried me. 

‘I don’t remember further. I heard sounds periodically, very far away. But when they said '12 minutes', I heard that clearly. 

‘I was shocked that I coped. I am satisfied with the result. 

‘Nobody believed this could be done. I almost doubted myself. 

‘By testing myself, I study what a human can achieve. I want to understand who I am, why I am here and what my future path is. 

‘It is testing that gives me an understanding of who I am. 

‘Secondly, these tricks have already made me 15 years younger. 

‘I also really hope that they will make me immortal. I will continue this way. 

‘Cold is one of the keys to immortality. If you fully master the cold, hunger and movement, you can become immortal.' 

He dedicated the iceman experiment to his wife Irina but said she did not watch his stunts.

‘She is scared,’  he said. ‘Everything is fine. Irina, I love you very much! I'll be home soon.’

The test was monitored by Yakutsk Scientific Centre of Complex Medical Problems.

Ahead of his burial, they said: ‘For us, this test is of great interest. 

‘We will look at the psycho-emotional state of a person, the level of situational personality anxiety. 

‘We will check for changes in red and white blood cells. 

‘We will see how they change their form, and behave in a stressful situation. 

‘If we can take the blood, then we want to see the hormones: cortisol, testosterone.’

Ahead of the experiment he had given the rescuers permission to use sledgehammers to break the ice cocoon around him.

'I plan to stay there for 13 minutes and after this my 'heart' will be broken,’  he told The Siberian Times.

Explaining his experiment he said: 'My task is to show that we know almost nothing about either the human or the reality that surrounds us. 

‘That is, I will be in a completely different state and in a completely different reality.

‘This is a kind of trance state. 

‘I have been training in the cold for a very long time. 

‘What I am preparing myself for and what I am getting is the very understanding that cold does not exist. It is this ability that I train in myself.’

Oleg claimed before today to have set 11 world records related to the surviving in cold. 

At the opening of the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014 he swam for two minutes a distance of 125 metres in the icy water of the Black Sea. 

His next plans are on 8 March to be immersed in the vapour of liquid nitrogen for one hour at minus 150 degrees. 

Then, on 9 May he  plans to run 30 kilometres on Mount Elbrus - Europe’s highest. Peak - with an open body.