The Times article from 1960’s, the copy of which I posted couple of days ago, brought some nostalgic memories :) and desire to elaborate on it and compare to present day. The article is rather good, so, these are not the notes of critique. To follow the read below you’d probably want to read the original article first.

I was born in Sochi in late seventies, and growing up there in eighties I have to note, that not much was changed since the times described by the Times’ correspondent to my childhood days. There were still putevkas, trip vouchers of a sort, and savages, the people who traveled to the Black sea resorts on their own. “Savages” (dikari in Russian), because their lodging was not civilized — or rather not luxurious, by Soviet standards, as stay of people settled in Sochi spas.

The source of the problem

The city of Sochi was established Read the rest of this entry »

Finally!!! After 15 years, Russia is ice hockey World Champion again!!! :-)

Thank you, guys, sooooo much for the emotions and pride!!!

photo (c) iihf.com

photo (c) AP

As reported by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS about a week ago, Russia and Ukraine have reached the agreement to build a bridge connecting Russia’s South and Crimea. I’ve written an article about plans for the Kerch Strait Bridge when they were announced by Ukrainian officials last year.

That announcement came short after Russian gov’t officially pledged to develop Sochi as round-year resort no matter how the Olympic bid goes. Many believe having this bridge will help Ukraine get some of the money Russia will pump into the south over the next decade. Anyways, both Russian and Ukrainian prime ministers have confirmed the agreement, and Ukrainian PM, Yulia Timoshenko, announced that the work on this project will start within days.

The first Kerch Strait Bridge connecting Krasnodar Krai and Crimea was built back in 1944, but was destroyed within a year by sea storms, and was never rebuilt. There are several projects for the new bridge in existence, valued between $700 million and one billion dollars.

As a separate, transportation related, piece of good news for Russia’s south - Russian government allocated extra money for reconstruction and maintenance of Russia’s roads. And the largest part of it - 86.7 billion rubbles ($3.7 bln), instead of originally planned 27 billion ($1.1 bln) just this year alone - will go into “Olympic” roads: М4 “Don”, connecting Moscow and Novorossiysk, and М27, Dzhubga - Sochi. 

Source: lenta.ru

Here are several photos from brand spanking new «Laura» resort (official name “The mountain-ski center «Gazprom»”) launched this winter season!

At present Gazprom constructs a Mountain Resort in the Achipse River valley and at the Psekhako Ridge. Gazprom finishes the first stage of construction including 8 ropeways, ropeway lower station with utility rooms, ski lifts, 220 room hotel, 32 villas, guest house for official delegations, volleyball playground, tennis courts as well as energy supply, security, communication facilities and other operating and auxiliary facilities. In the end of 2007 Gazprom plans to commission all facilities of the first construction stage.

- from Gazprom’s press release

See map and all 15 photos: Read the rest of this entry »

Air Force One has landed today in Adler airport, marking the beginning US President’s first visit to Sochi on his two days work trip. It will most likely be the last time George W. Bush and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will meet as presidents, as Putin’s second presidential term will end in May.

There was no official word on what will be discussed during the meeting, but there sure are a lot of issues to be discussed between the US and Russia. Like Kosovo, anti-missile defense (many believe this one will be the main topic), NATO expansion, the Russian-U.S. relations and many other. «The Times» reports that Putin will officially propose the tunnel between Alaska and Russia’s Far East. And Russian media reports about possibility of signing a “strategic framework” document — sort of “road map” of the Russia-US relations, the guide for Next Russian and US Presidents (the next Russian President will take office in May and the presidential elections in the USA will take place in the end of this year).

The US delegation has 700 people, including US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, and US Ambassador to Russia William Burns. Russian delegation will include all their counterparts, and president-elect Dmitry Medvedev.

The first day is over now and there was no official “business” talks, it was all about pleasure: Putin gave tour to George and Laura Bush of future Olympic areas, presented scale models of Olympic projects, sea shore walk and sunset watch (how romantic *rolling eyes*), fancy dinner with a concert in presidential residence “Bocharov Ruchei”.

Other non-political plans for Bush and Rice this weekend includes Read the rest of this entry »

I didn’t know this, but Elena Vesnina, Russian tennis player, member of Russian FedCup team, lives in Sochi!

Russia is currently ranked number one in FedCup rankings. Number one, baby! :-)

As you may know, past Sunday was elections day to State Duma - lower house of Russia’s parliament. If you knew that you most likely to know that the United Russia party, headed by current President Vladimir Putin, won big in every region (including foreign voting location), however the results weren’t quite the same everywhere. For example it’s reported that in Chechnya 99+% voted for United Russia, while in St. Petersburg, Putin’s home city, “only” 50+%. Other parties’ support wasn’t even all around either. But Sochi residents as a whole, it seems, represent average Russia’s opinions — take a look at the results*: Read the rest of this entry »

Recently a new free online audio language learning service was launched. It has yummy name and provides lessons for several popular languages, including Russian.  There are many websites online that teach Russian language, this one by far the best one I’ve seen. In fact I’m writing about it only because I was impressed with it so much! It’s simple, has clean and intuitive interface, the quality of learning material and quality of audio is great, there’s a lot of the materials, and it’s free!

The course is for the beginners, and if you ever flirted with the idea of learning some Russian head on to the TryMango.com and give it a shot. The sign up process is painless, it doesn’t require activation via email, and you don’t even need a password!

There are 100 lessons available, and all audio material is done by native speakers. The Russian course is Read the rest of this entry »

S7, also known as «Sibir» Airlines, will start operation of St.-Petersburg — Sochi flights for the first time. Three and a half hours flights will operate every day starting September 17 with starting price of $145 (3700 rub); «Sibir» also offers lower cost tickets online – web-price for these flights will start at $80 (1990 rub).

Another flight, Novosibirsk – Samara – Sochi will start operating on September 19th and will also be a daily flight. These flights will start at $225 (5700 rub) one way.

«Dexter» Airlines will also start operating flights to Sochi, as well as several other southern cities, from Rostov and Krasnodar. «Dexter» is Russia’s first airline to offer “on-demand” flights. With prices “by kilometer” and park of Swiss-made Pilatus PC-12 and Russian-made M-101T airplanes, «Dexter» offers on-demand and regular flights from Business and VIP terminals, with registration times under 15 minutes. Prices for flights to Sochi will be $0.6-1 per kilometer for regular flights, and $4-5/ km for on-demand flights.

Several newborn girls in Chelyabinsk were named Olimpiada (“Olympics” in Russian), reports First Channel TV. I knew something like this would happen… really! This name is used in Russia, but it was never popular (well, actually, I don’t know what was going on with baby naming during Olympics in Moscow :)). Diminutive form of this name is Lipa.

Russian Thai Boxing Federation has applied to host 2008 European Thai Boxing Championship in Sochi, Russia. Sochi has strong Martial Arts traditions, for example we have one of Russia’s best Muai Thai clubs - «Atlan». Several of Atlan students have become Russian and European champions in Thai- and kickboxing. Also, Sochi often (every year?) hosts finals of the Russian «Pankration» (aka “Russian Absolute” – Russian version of UFC) Championship.

Ok, there’s no official contest for Olympics 2014. Not yet anyways. However Sochi-2014 organizational team promised in the recent interview that the Mascot will be selected through public contest. So, people didn’t wait long to overwhelm them with ideas :) It seems most people want to see a bear as a mascot for Sochi Olympics. All kind of “bear” ideas were sent organizational team’s way, from reusing “Mishka” of 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow (everyone in Russia adores him! :)) to other “Mishkas” from cartoons and famous paintings. Other, more exotic, ideas include ski-jumping dolphin, a seagull (the last name of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, Chaika, means “seagull” in Russian; he was just selected to keep an eye on Olympic money spending), and five (for Olympic rings) gas pipelines with flames :o) But it is very likely that Cheburashka, current Russian Olympic Team mascot, will become Sochi Games mascot. Besides, (american) people confuse it with a bear all the time anyways, I have one in my office : )

Mascot of the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow

I personally think, that most likely the mascot will be created by the professionals (please, God, make them NOT select the same ones that did London’s logo!), and they just want to see what people want, and to keep up the excitement.

So, do you have an idea for Sochi Olympics mascot? If you do, you can send it to the head of Sochi-2014 team Dmitry Chernyshenko to chernyshenko@mtu-net.pp.ru

Chebu in my office :)

News stories that caught my eye; some are new, some are updated:

• Over $622 million are allocated for Sochi program for the rest of this year from federal budget. Next year this sum will be $1.2 bln, and in 2009-2014 around $1 bln every year. Additional funds will be allocated in Krasnodar Regon’s and Sochi’s budgets, and more money will come from private investments.
• Business delegation from Belgium and Luxemburg will visit Sochi in May 2008 to learn about the opportunities in preparation for the Olympics. They are interested in construction, construction materials and hi-tech infrastructure projects.
• Second hydroelectric power station in Krasnaya Polyana will be completed by 2010 and will comply with all environmental requirements, including requirements of the Kyoto Protocol. Moreover, three billion dollars - a quarter of the promised 12 billion dollars investments, will be spent on upgrading Sochi’s energy sector. And this is a good thing, if you’ll remember this year’s (and every year’s) power outages in Sochi. All planned energy related projects are promised to be completed by year 2012.
• Around $117 million will be spent on four telecommunications projects in Sochi.
• Over 50 000 police officers will be ensuring safety in Sochi during the Olympics — that’s three and a half times fewer than during Summer Olympics in Moscow in 1980. Large role will be given to the hi-tech tools, such as state of the art video surveillance systems and new systems setup around the city with direct lines to the police.
• Three backup airports will be built for the Olympics in Russia’s South: in Gelendzhyk (another Back Sea resort north of Sochi), Mineralnye Vody (”Mineral Waters”, a … mineral waters resort :)), and Krasnodar (region’s capital). Sochi’s airport will be upgraded to accept any size aircraft in almost any weather conditions.

Backup airports for 2014 Winter Olympics

Wow! As you can imagine the news media of all sorts as well as regular people in blogs and forums are talking about our Olympic bid’s success. The win’s Pros and Cons arguments seem even more heated than before the vote: new infrastructure vs environmental worries, higher salaries vs high inflation, pride and recognition vs prospects of weaker foreign policy, ability vs inability to complete construction on time, international spotlight vs corruption - you name it, its been talked about. Whose shares went up? What will happen to people who live in and around the areas of constructions? What will happen to the “Olympic” money? Will the Olympics be profitable? Will it become’s Putin’s project for the upcoming years (after he leaves office next year after second term as President)? Both optimists and pessimists know all the answers, and they are completely opposite :) The truth, as always, lays somewhere in between. But everybody agrees - making this Olympics a success is a big exam for Russia.

I’ll try to avoid covering the arguments about all this questions as right now all of it is just speculations and personal views, and will stick to the facts.

So, how did Russia react to Sochi’s win? Mostly with shock and cheer! A lot of people, even the one’s who really wanted the win, did not believe in it. I’ve read that Russian betting offices lost over 10 million rubles (~$390 000). Betting is not that popular in Russia, but the point is they burned on this. A lot of people feel pride (so do I :)), and most are lost in guesses on how and how much this will change Russia’s South, and people’s lives.

July 5th (because of the time difference, it was 5th in Sochi when results were announced in Guatemala) will very likely become an official holiday in Sochi, this idea is already being proposed by Sochi’s mayor, Viktor Kolodyazhny. Russian businesses celebrated this victory with enthusiasm and introducing “olympic” sales. For example Russia’s biggest online store ozon.ru introduced 20% off almost all items for purchases on July 5th ans 6th, several travel agencies introduced lower rates to Sochi for those who’ll order next 10 days, “Ural airlines” introduced special “Olympic” rate for people going to Sochi for it’s development — from construction workers and engineers to sportsmen and their trainers, etc.

Anyways, I’ll keep an eye on the developments and keep you posted ;)

The information in this article is still in effect, however according to recent news reports the registration of foreigners will not be required in the near future, as the point of new migrations law is not registration of foreigners, but monitoring of how many foreigners are in Russia at any given time.

One of the biggest pains about traveling to Russia for foreigners is a required registration in the city of stay within three business days of arrival. When you stay in the hotels, most hotels will take care of it for you, but if you come to visit (and stay with) your friends and family, you have to get registered.

Read on for the registration procedure guide. Read the rest of this entry »