In December 2006 some Sochi residents rallied against holding the Olympic Games in Sochi. The major concerns that they brought up were dense building constructions, ecological impact of the rapid development, and already overloaded transportation infrastructure, writes “Novaya Gazeta Kubani” newspaper.

December is not today, but this is recent, and still is of current importance. Read the rest of this entry »

German Gref, Russian Minister of Economics and Trade, will now have an assistant whose sole job will be realization of the federal program to turn Sochi into year-round resort.

Also, three “layers” of control over how money, allotted for preparing Sochi for the Olympics, are used: (1) Minister of Economics, who will personally oversight the money flow and lead the board of directors (I guess that’s why he’d need an assistant dedicated for these tasks :); (2) a supervisory board consisting of well known public figures will be created; and (3) and Accounts Chamber of Russian Federation.

A high-level delegation from Sochi 2014 arrived this morning at the International Olympic Committee Headquarters in Lausanne, two days ahead of schedule, to deliver their finalized Candidature File, Sochi’s visionary proposal to host a technically excellent Winter Games.

According to Sochi 2014, 150 people worked nearly 70,000 hours over a 17-month period to produce a “highly comprehensive and technically excellent plan”.

Russian TV channel NTV had a nice video clip talking about the event. I’ll post a few screenshots below. Read the rest of this entry »

When I started this blog, I was wondering if many people in my target audience would want to see Sochi hosting Olympics if Olympic Games were to be this year and why, what people know about Sochi, and what do they think about other candidate cities’ advantages and disadvantages over Sochi. So, I’ve posted my question on a few travel boards and got a few answers. One thing I noticed is that many Europeans would prefer Austria’s bid over other’s for the reasons of convenience – geographical proximity means cheaper travel, no visa requirements, etc. And I can relate to all that. But I couldn’t help myself thinking how short-sighted this line of reasoning is. And, I think, partly this comes from lack of information.

Here are my thoughts on how Olympics in Sochi will benefit Europeans over Olympics in Salzburg. Read the rest of this entry »

As part of the action “Your Olympics – your voice”, post boxes with Olympic symbolic will be placed on the city’s busiest streets and squares.

This Sochi officials’ initiative is designed to receive feedback from city residents and guests about making the resort a better place to live in and to visit, as well as to hear people’s ideas and concerns related to city’s ongoing preparation to host the Olympics.

“Preparation for the Olympic Games – is a common cause of all residents of our city. That’s why we would like to give every Sochi resident and guest an opportunity to share their opinion with city’s officials and officials of the “Sochi-2014? campaign.”

Source: interfax.ru

According to the governor of Krasnodar Territory (where Sochi is located) Alexandr Tkachev, federal government is planning to invest 195 billion rubles (7.4 billion US dollars) in Sochi for preparation for the Olympics. Also, private business will invest around 120 billion rubles (4.7 billion US dollas) in Sochi.

There are also heavy investments planned for special economic zones on the Black Sea cost, recently setup by federal government – 29 billion rubles (1.1 billion US dollars) by government and around 150 billion rubles (5.7 billion US dollars) by Business. However, I don’t know if Sochi is part of any economic zones.

Another cool idea by regional administration in preparation for Olympics – all Sochi policemen, and the policemen from the region who will work in Sochi during the Olympics, will have to learn the English language. A basic introduction in English will no longer cut it – they will have to know the language well enough to help a person with his/her question or problem, or to give directions to a foreigner who got lost. A special phase-book is being developed specifically for this task.

Well, this definitely is a good idea, considering amount of international visitors Olympics will bring. I hope this will go beyond a phrase-book and they’ll have to take some serious courses. Now we just need to get The Games…