I saw a video clip of so-called Russian Climbing at work today. It turns out that it’s an extreme sport of French origin called Parkour or Free Running.

Parkour is "the art of forward motion in spite of obstacles". Its prac­ti­tion­ers (traceurs) run around urban landscapes, performing Jacky Chan-like leaps, rolls, stunts, jumps, and flips.

The excellent How­Stuff­Works.com has a good in­tro­duc­to­ry piece on Parkour.

There is a local group of traceurs, who are written up in a P-I article. Their website is Washington Parkour. It seems there’s a "jam" every Sunday at noon at Seattle’s Freeway Park. It sounds like a photo-op to me.