5-Year-Olds Dig Tunnel to Escape From Preschool

by Kirsten Howard

It sounds like the plot of a family adventure film, but Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda reports that two young boys who were on a quest to buy a Jaguar sports car tunneled their way out of a preschool—using toy shovels. The 5-year-olds walked more than a mile to the luxury car showroom before a female motorist spotted them. They told her they’d come to buy a Jaguar, but didn’t have the cash to pay for it. She took them to the nearest police station.

The incident happened in the Russian city of Magnitogorsk during a supervised walk of the preschool’s grounds.

“We don’t have any details yet, we can only confirm the fact itself,” said a spokesperson from the Chelyabinsk regional interior ministry.

According to Komsomolskaya Pravda, which interviewed the preschool’s staff after the incident, the boys had been digging a hole under the fence using toy shovels for days before they finally managed to escape. It was half an hour before anyone noticed they had disappeared.

“This is considered a very serious violation,” said Olga Denisenko, head of Magnitogorsk's preschool department.

Authorities have responded by firing the supervisor in charge of the boys that day, but the acting head has been let off with a warning as the boys’ parents chose not to file a complaint.