TikTok bathroom ritual leads to police investigation at Russian cadet school

In 2020, students across the United States participated in a destructive TikTok trend that involved vandalizing school bathrooms. This week, a cadet school in the Russian city of Saratov became the center of a different online craze in which students perform ceremonies to “transfer” control of school bathrooms. Though the ritual causes no property damage, local authorities have condemned it. State prosecutors have filed charges against several teenagers after video of their bathroom ceremony went viral, accusing them of using profanity and “shouting phrases promoting an organization whose activities are prohibited,” Mediazona reported on May 27.

In the video, cadets “ceremonially transfer” the bathroom to younger students, invoking both “the rules of conduct” and “the thieves’ code.” A younger student, identified as the “new overseer for the fourth-floor bathroom,” then announces the rules in explicit language: “No shitting, no pissing, no ass-fucking, share your smokes, top off the vape juice, no spitting, and no pissing on the windowsill.” At the end of the recording, the boys sing a song that includes the words “Tattoo the Cupolas on Me.”

Saratov education officials said the students were attempting to recreate a viral social media video. The news outlet 7x7 reports that the bathroom transfer rituals became a TikTok trend in 2024, with students across Russia posting footage of such “ceremonies” during graduation season.

Prosecutors have not specified which laws the teenagers allegedly violated. Meanwhile, officials issued reprimands to school administrators and prevention agencies for “not taking appropriate action to avoid such incidents.” State investigators launched a separate inquiry into the school officials’ conduct.

City education officials said they formally reprimanded the assistant principal for student affairs, the supervising administrator, and the floor monitor, while stripping the “video participants” of their Cossack ranks and titles.