MOSCOW: Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz’s golden escalator suffers a technical malfunction when he arrived in Moscow for a historic visit to Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin.
When he was deboarding from his private jet, the golden escalator suddenly stopped, leaving him stuck midway.
The Saudi king and his retinue looked on in confusion for several moments, before the 81-year-old monarch proceeded down the staircase step by step.
Here is the video that went viral:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KswQg1DQGf8
King Salman, on the four-day official trip to Russia arrived with a delegation of more than 1,000 people, a golden escalator and his own carpets and occupied all the available hotel rooms in five-star hotels around the Kremlin, including one entire hotel, state RIA Novosti news agency reported.
Salman arrived in Moscow along with Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih, Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir and Minister of State Musaed al-Aiban.
While Russia and Saudi Arabia are partners on the oil market, they are at loggerheads on Syria, where Moscow supports President Bashar al-Assad and Riyadh backs the opposition.
They also diverge on Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition has been bombing Huthi rebels since 2015, drawing criticism from Moscow.
Putin visited Riyadh in 2007 and last met Salman in Turkey in 2015. Salman said he last visited Russia in 2006, before becoming king.
With agencies inputs