Translated material
PR manager
On the eve of the opening of the Games in Vancouver, Vladimir Putin conducted a world video tour of the Olympic Sochi
On the evening of February 11, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, returning from Naberezhnye Chelny to Moscow, stopped for several hours in Sochi to communicate from the capital of the future Winter Olympics using high-tech television with members of the Russian national team who had arrived in the capital of the current Games - the Canadian city of Vancouver .The teleconference connected the Sochi information center "Sochi-2014", opened back in 2008, with the Russia House in Vancouver, which opened its doors just a few hours after the teleconference. It was nine in the evening in Sochi, eight in the morning in Vancouver. In Sochi, in the hall of the information center, in addition to the prime minister, there were journalists covering his trip to Naberezhnye Chelny, the representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Southern Federal District Vladimir Ustinov, the governor of the Krasnodar Territory Alexander Tkachev and the mayor of the city Anatoly Pakhomov. Members of the women's ice hockey and curling teams, members of the Sochi 2014 organizing committee, journalists, as well as Deputy Prime Ministers Dmitry Kozak and Alexander Zhukov, who are responsible for preparing Sochi for the Winter Games, came to the Russia House in Vancouver for a teleconference with the Prime Minister. 2014.
The participants in the teleconference immediately felt that Vancouver and Sochi are in opposite parts of the planet: the connection did not go well at first - in Sochi the Vancouver “Russian House”, the full name of which is “Sochi-2014 Russian House”, was seen and heard, and in Vancouver Sochi haven't been seen or heard for some time. On the Vancouver side of the teleconference, the sound was only in the earphone of the Channel One correspondent, who conveyed the prime minister’s words to everyone present. But then the connection improved, and the Russian athletes applauded loudly when Vladimir Putin’s face suddenly appeared in front of them on the television screen.
The President of the Sochi 2014 organizing committee, Dmitry Chernyshenko, showed the premiere of “Russia House” (Mr. Chernyshenko walked through the halls, and the video camera followed him). Vladimir Putin was satisfied: the Russians turned the House of Science, rented for the duration of the Games, into a luxurious venue for the presentation of their Winter Olympics, which will start in Sochi in exactly four years. That the Sochi-Vancouver teleconference, held just before the opening ceremony of the Games in Canada, was an integral part of this presentation program addressed to the whole world, became clear when the Russian Prime Minister began to conduct a video tour of the Sochi Olympic construction sites. The footage that appeared on screens in Sochi and Vancouver was taken at the personal request of Mr. Putin on the same day.
Commenting on the video, Vladimir Putin said that by 2014, 207 facilities should be built in Sochi that are directly or indirectly related to the Olympics, that 50 facilities are already under construction, and six facilities have been put into operation (these are transport infrastructure facilities). Work on particularly important construction sites in Sochi is ongoing around the clock, and the pace of construction is still on schedule, as has been repeatedly recorded by experts from the International Olympic Committee (IOC). “I was very pleased with their remarks when they were leaving after the recent inspection,” Vladimir Putin shared with the athletes at the Russia House and with the whole world. - They said: “Now we have seen the full power of the Russian state!”...
“This is a unique Olympic project,” continued the Prime Minister. - Because what we do, we do from scratch, in an open field, from a blank sheet of paper. It's not cheap. But, on the other hand, it gives us a unique chance to do everything based on the latest latest technologies..."
For the Olympics in Sochi, 206 km of roads, 105 km of railways will be built, ten road and 11 railway tunnels will be built, an airport, a seaport, two hospitals, a clinic, wastewater treatment plants, one hydroelectric power station and five thermal power plants will be built, as well as a nursery for endangered plant species. Having listed all this, Vladimir Putin seemed to emphasize that only thanks to the Olympics Sochi will turn into a modern world-class city, perhaps even comparable to Vancouver.
After the teleconference, only for Russian journalists, the prime minister announced that thanks to the Olympic project, it was possible to attract about half a trillion rubles in private investment for the development of Sochi. But he complained that private investments in Sochi are still being made “not as actively as planned.”
“The scale itself saves me from the need to make a large, lengthy presentation of each object,” Vladimir Putin concluded his story about the Sochi construction projects. “This gives me the right to say briefly and clearly for everyone: this is cool!”
This Sochi “coolness” should, in his opinion, become an additional motivation for Russian athletes to achieve outstanding results and win the most prestigious awards at the Vancouver Olympics.
It is interesting that during the Sochi-Vancouver teleconference, Vladimir Putin separately touched upon the topic of an almost snowless winter on the east coast of Canada, without missing the opportunity to say that there is now enough snow in the mountains of Sochi, where the alpine skiing competitions will be held. At the same time, there were shots of three snowcats rolling away virgin snow under the picturesque peak. These shots raised many questions among Sochi residents. The fact is that in Sochi now the problem with snow is exactly the same as in Vancouver - there is none either down by the sea or in the mountains. Only on the highest peaks, more than 2500 meters above sea level, are snow caps white in some places. For example, yesterday in Sochi the air temperature during the day rose to plus 14-15 degrees, and in the mountain village of Krasnaya Polyana, in the vicinity of which Olympic ski slopes, a biathlon complex, springboards, a bobsleigh track and other Games facilities are being built, the air warmed up to plus 12.
Everywhere in Sochi, just like in Vancouver, it has been raining for several days in a row. The owners of the three operating Sochi ski resorts are talking about the failure of the season. By the way, last year’s season was also a failure for them due to the lack of snow. Therefore, Sochi residents believe that the snowcats for filming “Putin’s” television presentation were specially dropped by helicopters somewhere where there really is snow, but where the local cable cars still cannot reach.
Of course, after the teleconference held by Vladimir Putin, Sochi residents are discussing with renewed energy the chances of their city becoming at least a little like Vancouver, Canada. There are still more skeptics in these debates than optimists. They support their point of view with an indisputable argument - the way that multi-apartment residential buildings are now being renovated in Sochi as part of the preparation of the city for the Games: only the facades are being repaired, and all the long-rotten “filling” remains untouched. In some places it is done even simpler - the house is, as it were, placed in a “sarcophagus” made of modern glass panels. From the outside it’s just “candy”. But inside...