In society

Half-Olympiads

February 17, 2014 Anton Oresh

At the request of the road editorial office, I summarize the intermediate Olympic result. Half of the games in Sochi is behind, and you probably need to do some. But the main conclusion is that nothing special is happening in Sochi. Nothing out of the ordinary. And in this sense, for the organizers, the lack of news is good news.

In general, this situation is quite typical. Because most fears come from people who represent the specifics of sports and holding large competitions quite approximately and expect some tricks, guided by their own logic. There were several things related to Sochi and caused concerns.

First, safety. Ugh-pah, God forbid, so that nothing happens until the end of the games, but so far everything is quiet. Why did the American warships arrive in the Black Sea to support us in the event of a threat of vicious forces - I did not understand from the very beginning. Still, the attacks of terrorists are difficult to reflect with the help of the Navy. Just as with the help of air defense or armored joints. At the household level, in the context of safety, they feared total shmon and machine gunners on every corner. These fears have not yet been confirmed. Because the search, although serious, does not interfere with life and, as almost all my acquaintances in Sochi say, the protection is carried out quite unnoticed and unobtrusively. The police were even taught to smile at least after a time.

Secondly, they feared all the oppression of sex minorities and political actions. But this is definitely unlikely. Not such fools are our leaders to seriously catch gays in Sochi during the games. Yes, to be honest, I don’t remember at all that some political and civic activity was once observed at the Olympics and that sexual issues were somehow appeared there.

Thirdly, they were afraid that the Olympics in the subtropics would not be physically able to take place. The weather was, by the way, even more extremely than expected. The thermometer crawled to absolute records in the history of observations. But while the quirks of the Sochi climate were led only to the transfer of one race due to the fog. Remembering the previous games, Sochi is still easily getting off. Over the past 20 years, only the Olympiad in Lillehammer has not suffered from melted snow, plus temperatures, fogs and other outrages. In Vancouver four years ago, skiers in the end ran in the rain in the path of artificial snow, laid among brown-green lawns. We haven't gotten to this yet.

At the same time, the weather found an unexpected propaganda plus. After all, our Russia is everywhere perceived as a country of eternal winter and frosts. And now the whole world is shown how skiers run distances in T -shirts, and the fans sunbathe and even bathe. I would not be surprised if this is part of the insidious plan of the Supreme Commander.

The remaining fears, fears and phobias concerned the general organization. How many fans will be how many people will come from abroad, how the transport will work (the main hemorrhoids at all olympiads), how stupid volunteers will be (and they are very numerous everywhere, very kind and very useless). Summarizing everything at once, by the impressions of eyewitnesses that deserve my trust, I will say that while the assessment is in the area of ​​the four. Volunteers are no worse than the average. The transport works sensibly, there were not too many fans from abroad, but the occupancy of the stands is decent, taking into account merciless prices.

Although our fans are specific. They can make noise and get sick out of place. After the performance of Russian athletes, they can get up and leave. They can perfectly create a crush. Because the famous Sochi queues are also explained in many ways by the fact that people come for the ordered tickets at the last moment or, already standing at the window, begin to choose what to go for and where ours are performing in order to rush there and there. However, in competitions without the participation of Russians or in not very rated hockey matches there is more than expected. This is the part of the spectators who wants to "imbue the atmosphere and touch the holiday."

The puncture happened where it seemed to be not expected, but where he was inevitable. Your humble servant repeatedly spoke and wrote that if something destroys these games, then our service. We will build objects, show the bakery, but the service area is our nightmare. Two toilets in the booth, yellow water in the cranes, the lack of paper in the same toilets, unwinded handles, fallen cornices, stuck elevators-and all that kind, which became the main topic on the eve of the opening of the Olympiad and in the first day or two-what the foreigners did not expect to see. Therefore, a wave of sarcasm and mockery rose.

But my friends! This could not surprise us with you! Why are we going on vacation at sea to Greece, Turkey, Egypt and so on? Because the service is better there, and prices are most often even lower than in the resorts of the Krasnodar Territory. And skiing is cheaper and more pleasant to ride in Austria than in Sochi. Because you can pay a lot of money for five stars and be left without hot water. And as a bonus they will not change linen, they will not take out the garbage, they will poison in a restaurant and impress. For us, this is the norm of life, for visitors - shock, incident and a reason for satirical instagrams.

A chic village was built for athletes. Feed for slaughter. Everyone is happy. And the journalists will break through. We do not consider our journalists for the serious power with which we must be friends, which must be helped and which must be respected. And the attitude towards the foreign press is the same. That is why the hotels for the media were built as they could and how they managed.

And puddles, landfills and garbage dumps that arise, if you wrap it behind the front facade, are also our long -standing tradition. I have no desire to scold the damned regime for this. If only because this is called by tradition not “Putin villages”, but “Potemkin”. And this tradition, stretching through centuries, will survive both Putin and all of us.

In short, to summarize in half the Olympiads, I will say that, as a rule, there is no longer directly incredible in the course of the competition. And if in the remaining two weeks there will not be some kind of tragedy, some purely sports scandal indicating the dishonesty of the owners, and if all the snow does not melt (which is unlikely to take into account the weather forecast), then the games as a separate event should be quite successful.

But, once again I repeat, I personally have no doubts about this. For all the claims have nothing to do with Sochi, to sports and these 18 days in February.


Photo by ITAR-TASS/ Sergey Fadeichev