St Petersburg icicles
A picture taken on December 16, 2010, shows municipal workers breaking dangerous icicles from the roof of a building in downtown in St Petersburg. KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP/Getty Images

A daredevil Russian urban climber has been found frozen to death and hanging from the roof of a snow-covered student dormitory.

Mystery surrounds the exact circumstances of 26-year-old Yevgeny Tikhonov's death in subzero temperatures, but there are no obvious signs he took his own life.

Tikhonov's body cut a macabre sight, dangling 40ft above the ground, snow covering his head and icicles hanging from his feet.

He was spotted by a young girl in Anzhero-Sudzhensk, a town 65 miles north of Siberian city Kemerovo, who alerted adults who then called emergency services.

The icicles hanging from Tikhonov's feet suggest he had been hanging from the building for a long period, but some local reports claim he died only two hours before he was found.

Temperatures in the region had plummeted to -27C at night in the hours before the tragedy was discovered.

"Tikhonov was a well-known and experienced industrial climber, who had worked repairing many tall buildings," reported The Siberian Times.

It added: "His social media pages show him working on far taller buildings than the three storey student dormitory where he was found."

The climber lived and worked in Anzhero-Sudzhensk with his girlfriend.

"He loved working as industrial climber and often joked with us that he only came down to sleep," said a female friend.

Russian authorities have set up an investigation to establish the circumstances surrounding his death.