Olympic site a tale of two cities
Fabulous facilities stand in stark contrast to illegal dumps, outhouses
SOCHI, RUSSIA— Russia’s first Winter Olympics are a tale of two cities.
For those coming from Moscow and from around the world to the Sochi Games in February, they are likely to be the best of times. For those who reside in the Black Sea, the Games may be the worst of times.
They have put up with years of traffic jams and even more feeble government services than usual, but have now been asked to put away their cars and stay home during the Games, lest they get in the way of the fun.
That has given opponents of the Games lots of time to ponder whether the water supply in the Pearl of the Black Sea has been contaminated by all the construction and what will become of a number of winter sports facilities near the waterfront that loom as gigantic White Elephants because they exist in a place with no winter sports traditions.
It is estimated that it cost $51 billion to build the Sochi Games from scratch. That sum is more than seven times more what was spent four years ago at the Vancouver Games.
The money has bought architecturally stunning arenas with such perfect sightlines that there is almost no bad vantage points from which to watch the sports of the XXII Olympiad. But most of the money has been spent on bringing infrastructure to a place where the last serious building effort was by Josef Stalin, who ordered a road be hastily built so that he could get to and from his dacha.
Those who support the blitz of new roads, tunnels, bridges, railway stations and airports believe such structures mean life and development in a place that has lots of lovely palms along the coast but has received little attention or money from the Kremlin for decades.
While grateful for a new coastal road and for fabulous new snow sports facilities in the mountains, most residents of Sochi regard the fancy infrastructure as way over the top. They note, for example, that the Bolshoi Dome, where hockey is to be played, is likely to be deserted the moment the Olympics end.
It is not hard to understand the tale of two cities if you drive the wonky old road that roughly parallels the smart new expressway that links Sochi with the mountain venues.
Not 100 metres away from where fleets of Mercedes and BMWs stream up and down the hill carrying Olympic worthies and other visitors, every clapboard home is wood-heated and has an outhouse, erratic electricity and dodgy water.
Along the old route north into the mountains, there are dozens if not hundreds of examples of illegal landfills. Broken concrete and other debris has been chucked into the ditch where there is a gap in the trees.
There were some wonderful, peculiarly Russian examples of how to run a press tour for the international media. As the bus drove for kilometres beside the new Olympic rail line, photographers were reminded that for security reasons it was forbidden to shoot pictures or videos of the trains.
The leaders of the press tour were not allowed to be quoted because they were not official spokesmen. This was maddening because, in general, they were more well spoken and better informed than the official spokesmen who were trotted out from time to time.
As at every Winter Games, the best of the men’s hockey and figure skating sold out for Sochi long ago. Tickets for biathlon, which the Russians usually do well in, are all gone. There have also been strong sales for bobsled.
A hotel where about a dozen of the journalists on the pre-Olympic tour were staying had no heating, not enough space heaters and several long power outages.
While the first-rate Olympic facilities have also been finished already, some of the posh western hotel chains that have come to Sochi will be hard pressed to open their doors in February. Even if they do, there is an extreme shortage of workers willing to take temporary jobs in such places.
Russia’s Prime Minister, Dimitri Medvedev, has asserted that there will be no traffic tie-ups during the Sochi Olympics. Also on message, organizers here predicted it would only take 30 minutes to move from the centre of Sochi to the main Olympic cluster in the suburb of Adler. Hotel concierges scoffed at this. By their reckoning such trips would take between 90 minutes and two hours.
Uncharacteristically, the Canadian Olympic Committee has predicted that its athletes would top the overall medal table.
Russian sports officials, who were severely criticized by President Vladimir Putin and others for the country’s dreadful showing in Vancouver (three gold medals and 15 medals overall), have perhaps wisely refused to make any predictions.
But as a local wag put it, before Russia’s sports bureaucracy suddenly stopped issuing predications, it had calculated that the country would win 14 gold medals. That happens to be number of golds that Canada won in Vancouver.
The answer to such questions and whether the two competing sentiments about the Sochi games can be reconciled will begin to be known when the summer resort in the Caucasus welcomes the world to the Winter Games on Feb. 7.