Sochi’s young volunteers a generation removed from scowls of Soviet times
SOCHI, Russia — Tamara Smith had been longing to get to the Olympics since she was a 4- year- old growing up in Canton, Conn. She finally made it as one of the 25,000 volunteers helping teams, officials and spectators navigate theWinter Games.
Maybe she’s not the typical volunteer most are Russians and their average age is 23. Smith is a 41- year- old American who lives in Moscow, where she is head of the foreign languages department at a Russian private school. But she must be one of the most enthusiastic. When she described her experience, it’s as if she’s speaking in capital letters. “I am LOVING volunteering here,” she said.
Cheerful, ubiquitous
Volunteers were everywhere, impossible to miss in their uniform of bright blue pants and lively colored jackets, done up in a collage of Russian folk art evoking flower embellished metal trays, the red berries and golden leaves seen on wooden bowls and spoons, firebirds found on lacquered boxes, the hatched cobalt of traditional porcelain.
If their clothes honor the past, their demeanor speaks to the future. No vinegar faces here! The volunteers looked as sweet as Russian honey ( which, they’ll tell you, is the best in theworld.)
Some sat high up on bright orange lifeguard- like chairs, calling out pleasantries through bullhorns as spectators leave events: “We are glad to see you.” “Please come again.” “We hope you had a good time.” Other engaging young Russians stood at bus stops in the early morning drizzle, checking that schedules are on time and the right people are getting on the right buses. Early on, they filled the airport at all hours of day and night, giving arriving delegations hotel directions and hefting their here- foramonth suitcases.
Late one recent morning, Lena Klimkina and Yulia Vasilyeva, both 18- year- old college students from Moscow, were standing near the medals plaza, making cheerful eye contact with visitors dwarfed by the asphalt stretching around them, intimidated by trying to get a fix on the whereabouts of the Bolshoi Ice Dome orAdler Arena.
“I like everything here,” said Klimkina, a blond and freckled student at the Moscow State University of Management. She didn’t even mind getting aboard a train at 5 a. m. for the journey from her hotel in the distant settlement of Loo.
“We get a day off every week,” she said, “and I come withmy new friends to the OlympicPark. We see events, we have a good time.”
Vasilyeva studies at the Russian University of Tourism in Moscow. “This is great experience for me,” she said.
More than 80 percent of the volunteers were under 30, with little or no memory of Soviet days when it was far safer to scowl and turn away from foreigners than engage them.
Smith had been hoping to work with the U. S. ice skaters, but she speaks five languages, including Russian and French, which was in higher demand than English. She was assigned towork asanassistant to the French National Olympic Committee, making sure hotel roomswere ready, driving the head of the mission from mountain cluster to coast, every day filled with adrenaline and inspiration, she said, doing her part to make the Olympics perfect.
On Valentine’s Day she made time to buy balloons forsomeof the U. S. women. The next day she appeared on NBC’s Today Show for a feature on Olympic volunteering.
Smith got hooked on the Olympics watching on television as Irina Rodnina and Alexander Zaitsev from the Soviet Union skated to a gold medal at the 1976 Olympics in Innsbruck.
Her tour at the Olympics is something of a farewell to Russia. Smith’s husbandwas transferred to London, but she and their two daughters, Katerina, 13, andNatalia, 11, remained in Moscow to finish the school year. Soon, they leave for London.
The volunteers had to pay their own way to Sochi. The organizers provide their uniform, housing and three meals per day. Smith had expected to stay with a few other volunteers in a new apartment close to the Olympic Park that would later be sold as a condo.
Like other construction, itwasn’t finished. She ended up in a 1970s vintage Soviet hotel in the nearby Adler section of Sochi. “It’s perfectly nice,” shesaid. “Nofrills.” The food is fine, she said, although she conceded she was looking forward to cabbage- free days at home.