SOCHI OLYMPICS 2014
SOCHI
has been selected to host the
XXII Olympic Winter Games in 2014.
Sochi is a Russian resort city, situated in Krasnodar Krai just north of the southern Russian border. It sprawls along the shores of the Black Sea against the background of the snow-capped peaks of the Caucasus Mountains.
At 145 km (90 mi), Greater Sochi is claimed to be the longest city in Europe. As of the 2002 Census, it had a population of 328,809, down from 336,514 recorded in the 1989 Census.
2014 Winter Olympics
The International Olympic Committee has designated Sochi as the host city of the 2014 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Thanks to this decision, Russia will host its first ever Winter Games.
2014 Winter Olympics
In June 2006, IOC president Jacques Rogge announced that Sochi had been
selected as a finalist city to host the 2014 Winter Olympics. On July 4,
2007, Sochi was announced as the host of the 2014 Winter Olympics,
defeating Salzburg, Austria and PyeongChang, South Korea.
This will be the Russian Federation's first time hosting Winter Olympic
Games. Russia was a Soviet Socialist Republic of the former Soviet Union
when Moscow hosted the 1980 Summer Olympics. The Russian government has
committed to a $12 billion investment package, shared 60-40 between the
government and private sector.
Environmental impact
"Sadly, the Olympic bid is being used as a way for construction companies
simply to get their hands on the most valuable land," Greenpeace Russia’s
Mikhail Kreindlin said. "The last time the Russian government looked at this
issue, which was in January, 2007 they made no mention of the Olympic bid.
They simply said that the land could be used for social infrastructure,
whereas it was patently obvious that it would be snapped up by elite resorts
and golf clubs [with] nothing to do with the Olympics." Putin had apparently
chided construction firms working round-the-clock to get Sochi up to ready,
the St. Petersburg Times reported. "It would be a huge mistake not to take
into account what the environmental organizations think", said Putin. "We
are going to make sure that builders maintain contact with"
environmentalists, who had voiced concerns about the work’s impact on the
Sochi National Park, in the North Caucasus mountains.
Greenpeace Russia had told the US-funded Radio Liberty on 12 September 2006
that it wanted to prevent construction work inside a national park, which it
said would break Russia's environmental protection laws.
Construction work
View of the ski resort of Krasnaya Polyana. State-controlled Unified Energy
Systems would spend 30 billion roubles (about US $ 1.17 billion) on
upgrading the electricity infrastructure in the Sochi area by 2014,
the utility had announced on 5 July 2007, Moscow’s Kommersant daily reported
the next day. The utility would have to build or modernize four thermal
power stations and four hydroelectric plants — and replace the Central-Shepsi
electricity transmission line, which, the daily said, often failed in bad
weather. The new power line would run partly on pylons and partly across the
bed of the Black Sea. By 2011, UES would increase the resort’s power supply
by 1129 MW — of which 300 MW would be used for Olympic sports facilities
“The cost of the work is estimated at 83.6 billion roubles (about US $3.26
billion), of which 49.9 billion roubles (about US $1.94 billion) will go to
investments in the electricity grid,” utility head Anatoly Chubais said. He
would not say how much of the bill the state would foot. In February 2007,
when UES had planned to spend 48.8 billion roubles (about US $1.9 billion)
on the Sochi area, the share the state had been ready to pay had been 38
billion roubles (about US $1.48 billion) of that.