Since I’m still not finding much time to write more about Sochi, here are some short news that have been happening recently:

Financial crisis and Sochi investment projects

Amid the global financial crisis and the news that many investors are wrapping up their big real estate projects all around Russia and around World, not a single investor withdrew from the already concrete Olympic projects in Sochi - which is good news. However, new investors are not so quick to jump in anymore, so, the promised Government’s financial guarantees will come handy after all, I guess.

Georgia changes it’s mind

Georgia, which was one of the first to congratulate Russia on winning the Olympics bid, and who’s president said he supported Sochi bid from the beginning.. Same Georgia which then started a war on the first day of the Olympics in Beijing – something that western media was quick to call “Russian propaganda”, but more recently admitted it was Georgia who started it, and finally even Georgian president admitted giving the order to attack South Ossetia after high ranking Georgian official publicly said the same thing… That same Georgia few days ago tried to appeal to IOC to move Olympics from Sochi to another city – the move that IOC has quickly dismissed.

I think now Georgian or Abkhazian question in Sochi Olympics formula is finally closed forever: Georgia attacked Abkhazia (along with Ossetia) → Georgia lost → Russia officially recognized Abkhazia’s independence, which means Abkhazia can help with constructions and will benefit from increased tourism flow to the region → Russian troops will anchor for now in Abkhazia to ensure the region’s stability → IOC acknowledges Sochi is a safe city for the Olympics, the World class event – the cycle is complete for the next decade.

Explosions investigation

Three persons were detained in connection with explosions in Sochi that occurred earlier this year. No details yet, though.

Construction of 17 Olympic projects is already underway, another 100 projects are in the engineering phase, and around 60 more Olympics-related projects are applying for expert evaluation.

This info is from RIA Novosti. They also have some recent photos from constructions sites. Here a few of ‘em:

Olympic venues constructions start moves closer to the reality as Sochi administration and the residents of the Imeritinskaya Valley, where the Sochi 2014 Olympic Park will be located, reached compromise on where the residents will be relocated.

Russia offered exceptionally compact plan, where all the competition venues would be within 30 miles of each other. It will consist of two parts: mountain region, hosting sliding and skiing events, and sea-side region, where ice venues will be located. The sea-side region will be located in the Imeritinskaya Valley of the Adler district. There were several concerns with this location, the biggest one being a question of what to do with the people who live there now. Government has promised to make everyone happy, but with realty prices in Sochi skyrocketing after the successful Olympic bid, residents of “Imeritinka” (as locals call Imeritinskaya Valley) did not trust government to be good to its word. Most recent conflict was in the end of July, when locals did not allow city’s officials to their territory to measure their land.

But it appears that long fought battle is over. Earlier Sochi administration officials said that comromise has been reached, and not a single person will be relocated from the areas of Olympic construction without having their social issues taken care of first. And today Alexander Tkachev, governor of Krasnodarski Krai, signed first nine of 138 orders to take over real estate properties for the Olympic construction.

What is the deal

The details of the deal are as follows: residents will be able to choose between a new house in the eastern Imeritinskaya Valley build by the city, and a residence paid for by administration. For those who will choose to live in eastern part of Imeritinskaya Valley, the administration is allocating 66 hectares for the real estate properties where brand new houses will be built, as well as all necessary infrastructures. In addition to this, new cultural-historical center will be established to preserve traditions of the Old Believers community who live in Imeritinka as well.

It sounds like a really good deal. Especially considering that some parts of the Imeritinka has little to none of basic infrastructure.

First nine household will be relocated until the end of this year, while the rest of them during next 1,5-2 years span.

Olympstroy, state corporation responsible for coordination of the Olympic construction in Sochi, could not attract investors for some of the Olympic venues. The tender’s deadline was August 8, but there were no proposals for four projects, including the ice arenas.

The Olympstroys’ tender projects are tandems of Olympic venue plus hotel(s). Lenta.ru quoting Pokrov Invetment Group’s President saying that pay-off period for hotels can be from eighth years and more, while for the sports venues from 12 years to never. By his calculations sport venue + hotel tandem could take more than 20 years to pay-off.

Meanwhile, officials are not surprised about the outcome. The press secretary of the Ministry of Regional Development said that ice arenas in many countries are not paying off and are built on governments’ funds. However, the administration had to try to find private funds for these venues.

Now there will be separate tenders for the hotels, while Olympstroy will finance the venue constructions, and run separate tenders for prime contractors for the venues construction.

Information from Lenta.ru and Kommersant.ru

Own a business or have money to invest? You can help Sochi to get things done on time! :)

There are two places I know where you can find information about Olympics-related tenders. One is the official website of the Sochi Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games, and the other one is the website of the state corporation “Olympstroy”.

And these are not only tenders for construction of the Olympic venues for the Sochi Olympic Games, but also for smaller stuff, like supplying construction equipment, autos, office supplies and equipment, providing services like financial audits and technical expertise for various events, etc.

The trick with the Organizing Committee for OG is to monitor both Russian- and English-language versions of the websites. French-language version of the website doesn’t have any information on official tenders. Most tenders are published in the Russian section (of course in Russian language), and fewer are on English (in English). Looks like it depends on the tender where each one goes. Right now there are five open tenders in the Russian section.

The Russian section also lists several high-level open vacancies open in the Organizing Committee. I assume this means that the candidate has to be fluent in Russian. The English section’s “vacancies” section is empty for now.

Sochi Olympic tenders from the Sochi Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games:
- Russian language
- English language

The state corporation “Olympstroy” opened redesigned website about a week ago, and also lists all tenders there Read the rest of this entry »

* Sochi mayor Viktor Kolodyazhny resigns to become head of «Olympstroy» corporation owned by state which will control all Olympic related construction in Sochi, and, of course, the money flow. You can read more on this in The Moscow Times. The acting mayor for now will be Vladimir Afanasenkov — Vice Governor of Krasnodarsky Krai. He too was previously involved in Sochi’s Olympic bid.

* Russia launches Olympic brand protection campaign:

“Sochi 2014 Organising Committee and Russian authorities today began the first ever mass intellectual property protection campaign to safeguard the Olympic brand in Russia.

«Professional partnership London - Sochi» program took its start in the end of January in Sochi. The program provides for delegation exchanges between colleges and education establishments.

On January 22, professors from three London universities met with pedagogues from the «Black Sea humanitarian academy». During their week-long visit, guests from UK will have specialised seminar on teaching medical English, and will share their experience in organizing short term language courses for hotels’ personnel.

The point of this visit was to establish contacts and find common interests of two Olympic capitals in experience exchange of preparing staff for the Olympic Games. Educational consulting firm from London also plans to monitor knowledge level of English language among Sochi residents, students, and hotels’ personnel. Meanwhile city administration has set difficult goal for city’s teachers - to teach all residents at least one foreign language! Currently, out of 400 000+ residents only 10% know foreign languages in adequate level.

Sochi teachers will visit London in April, after which a document will be signed between two cities on educational tourism.

This is old news, but I didn’t even know, that google.ru had logo to honour Sochi’s Olympic bid win… cool! : )

The Organizing Committee for the XXII Olympic Winter Games and XI Paralympic Winter Games of 2014 in Sochi has officially been formed today. It will be responsible for the preparation and organization of the Olympic Games, and will report to the International Olympic Committee.

As was expected, Dmitry Chernyshenko is appointed chief executive officer of the organizing committee, and the Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov is appointed head of supervisory board.

The Organizing Committee will be ensuring that Read the rest of this entry »

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that laws pertaining to the future winter Olympic Games in Sochi must be passed before the end of 2007.

“One of the primary tasks is to devise proper regulations. The necessary Olympic laws must be passed before the end of this year,” Putin said at a session of the Presidential Council for Physical Education, Sports and preparations for the Olympic Games on Tuesday.

The Russian government and the presidential administration must include Sochi and Krasnodar representatives in the working group preparing these laws “so that all interests of the residents of these areas are taken into account,” Putin said.

Source: Interfax

So, as I mentioned in my previous post I recently spent two weeks in Sochi. Actually, I spent a little less there, as I went to Nebug, a small town north of Sochi, for a couple of days with my friends.

Since I came back everyone, who heard about Sochi’s Olympic future, keeps asking me what’s being done for the Olympics, what has changed - but what could change in two month?! Not much. Nothing, in fact, changed so far. We arrived to the same old airport terminal, no major constructions throughout the city, though I haven’t visited Krasnaya Polyana this time, where I hear some road constructions are on the way.

Well, some thing have changed, but not related to the Olympic bid win. New night clubs opened, such as “Platforma” club in the sea, which instantly overtook a crown from club “Malibu” as most popular open-air club in Sochi. Many places with beautiful landscaping jobs now have green highlights at night – this makes everything look beautiful. The public transportation problem as bad ad ever, and is worsened by the increasing amount of traffic in the city. At times the traffic in Sochi is as bad as it is in Moscow or Manhattan during peak hours. I almost missed my flight to Moscow sitting in the traffic. Of course, this goes back to the “roads problem” that our government promises to fix by the Olympics.

While I was there, the preparations to host the The Sixth International Investment Forum and following visits by Prime Minister of Spain Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, and the President of the International Olympic Committee Jacques Rogge were on the way. This caused some roads to be closed, which just added problems for drivers in Sochi, and subsequently increased taxi ride prices for the rest.

One major change, however, did take place - Read the rest of this entry »

SOCHI, Russia (Reuters) - Palm trees and sunbathing holidaymakers surrounded International Olympic Committee (IOC) chief Jacques Rogge on his first visit to the city that will host the 2014 Winter Olympics.

It was hard, perhaps, to picture biathlon and cross-country skiing taking place here but Rogge, by his own admission, was taken aback by the natural beauty of the area and the warm hospitality of the people.

“I am not used to having this kind of weather at a Winter Olympic city,” Rogge told Reuters in an interview at a seaside restaurant during his one-day trip to this Black Sea resort last week at the invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Still, this is a lovely place and I must say that holding the Winter Games in Sochi is a good idea.”

IOC executive director Gilbert Felli and Alpine skiing great Jean-Claude Killy, who accompanied Rogge on his visit, were equally impressed.

“The mountains are majestic, with a proper set-up you can make a great downhill course, very demanding,” said Killy, who won all three men’s Alpine skiing gold medals on offer at the 1968 Grenoble Olympics.

Regarded by some Olympic experts as rank outsiders, Sochi beat South Korea’s Pyeongchang and Austria’s Salzburg at the IOC session in Guatemala in July for the right to stage sport’s major winter festival.

Read the rest of this article at Reuters website »

IOC President Jacques Rogge was told during an informal meeting with President Vladimir Putin earlier today, that Dmitry Chernyshenko is to be appointed as the CEO of the Sochi 2014 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Organizing Committee.

Commenting on the news, Chernyshenko said:

“Managing the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Organizing Committee is a great honor and responsibility for me. In the next 7 years we have to create the best possible conditions for hosting the Games at the highest level. To this end we have formed the most effective project management structure for achieving this result. Our cooperation with the IOC and our Games preparation process had not stopped for a minute since Sochi’s victory in Guatemala. Since then, we have been building upon the experience and international contacts gained during the bidding process to ensure we meet and exceed the highest standards of the Olympic Movement.”

As a part of the meeting, Vice-premier Alexander Zhukov was named as the Head of Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee’s Supervisory Board, while Semen Vainshtok was named as the Head of State Corporation responsible for development of infrastructure and Olympic construction.

The official announcement of the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee’s senior management will be made next week at the meeting of the President’s Council on physical culture, sport and 2014 Olympic and Paralympic Games preparation. The council will include premier minister Viktor Zubkov, vice-prime minister Zhukov, Minister of Regional Development Kozak, Veinshtock, Minister of Finances, First Vice-premier Kudrin, businessman Vladimir Potanin, President of the Russian Olympic Committee Leonid Tyagachev, Minister of Sport Vyacheslav Fetisov, representatives of Sochi City and Krasnodar region administration. Dmitry Chernyshenko is also to be announced as Secretary General of this council.

Sochi2014.com press release

I thought I was special. But I guess I’m not… :)
There are a couple of comments from chernyshenko@mtu-net.pp.ru in my previous post on Sochi Olympic mascot, I was wondering if it could possibly be from the Sochi-2014 team. But then found this same text on few other Russian sites, mostly forums and news discussion boards. It’s someone’s way to reach to the Internet community to get as many votes as possible, let’s just hope this “someone” is on Sochi-2014’s organizational team :)

In any event, I’ve translated this list, and added some comments for things that may not be obvious for foreigners, hopefully this helps you understand some of those picks.

So, what do you think should be Sochi’s Olympic mascot?!!

Read the rest of this entry »

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.