Winter rain

Vancouver on the eve of the start

Tyakachev warriors. Before the Beijing Olympics, the President of the OKR stated that "we are going to war in a good sense of the word." To the Olympiad in Vancouver, the fighting fervor is a search - the Russian team by any signs of the favorite of the games is not and to be shot in most species can be idle (p. 19). Revenge should take place in four years, in Sochi. But at least we will learn how to learn from Canadians - they say that Vancouver is ready for the competition. What is common between the two capitals of the Winter Olympic Games? And there and there is warm. But Vancouver is recognized as the best city in the world for life, which can not be said about today's Sochi, whose inhabitants are already tired of the Olympic nervous -breed (p. 25).

Along the route "Pineapple express. The Organizing Committee of the Winter Olympiad spent a record amount - $ 1 billion - on security measures. But the main problem was the weather

It rains in Vancouver, cherries bloomed and smells in the air in the spring. Winter Olympics? If it were not for the Olympic billboards, giant screens for broadcasting competitions and a multilingual street crowd, it would even be funny to think about it. "Winter" - what?

City for life

Vancouver is only 125 years old, but he is the best city for life - according to The Economist magazine. And the second in the world after Paris in beauty - according to Forbes magazine. And literally the other day, Vancouver was also recognized as a city with the most inaccessible (for purchase) housing: demand significantly exceeds the supply, the prices are irresistibly striving up, they do not care any global crisis.
These days, Vancouver stood on tiptoe in anticipation of 85 national Olympic teams - 5500 athletes, officials and maintenance personnel. Plus a difficultly predictable number of tourists from around the world. Plus, meticulous journalists who will look at the advantages and disadvantages of Vancouver in a magnifying glass for 17 days. It is difficult to be God - it is difficult to be Vancouver. It is easier to be Sochi. Familiar Canadians have already asked: “Is it true that there is no sewage in Sochi everywhere in Sochi? Is it true that people live very poorly in Sochi? " And what to answer? ..
The competitions of the Vancouver Olympiad will be stretched around the territory of 120 km. Especially for the games, 16 large Olympic facilities were commissioned in Vancouver, Richmond, West Vancouver - these are the names of the municipal districts of the Big Vancouver, which are only 13.
An hour drive from the city center along the Sea-to-Sky just updated mountain highway-and you find yourself in an alpine fairy tale with wooden houses and creaky snowball. This is a whistler, the most beautiful ski resort of North America, where Olympic competitions in most ski sports will be held. In winter, the height of the snow cover reaches 9 meters here. The peaks of the main ski stations-Vistler and Blackcomb-rise 2.2 thousand meters each and are united by the latest PEAK-2-Peak Gondola cable car with a length of 4.4 km.
The opening ceremony of the Olympiad will be held at the 55,000th BC Place, the largest stadium in North America. But special attention is attracted by the new Olympic Oval skating stadium: when building its wooden roof, a unique technology for processing dead and damaged beetles-brows of pines was used. Reporting from the Olympics, the designers of the stadium hope, will help increase the demand for materials from dead trees. Not to mention the fact that the latest eco -technologies are a worthy contribution to the fight against climatic changes. The project worth $ 178 million has already received several architectural awards and is called the "Almaz" of the Vancouver Olympiad. And one magazine even called Olympic Oval “the most sexy athletes of Vancouver” - thanks to the graceful bend of the roof.

Winter Vancouver: There is everything except snow

Crosses of nature

Eight years ago, among the inhabitants of Vancouver, they conducted a survey: are they for or against the Olympics? 63% said - for. But today, only half of the townspeople are sure that they need the Olympics. And another 12% of residents generally plan to leave the city for this time. This audience has already been nicknamed "Olympic fugitives." Dissatisfied complain about blocked roads and streets, urban workload, a special schedule of medical facilities, the likely growth of municipal taxes ... The lack of support for citizens is not the only problem of the Olympiad organizers. On January 22, a demonstration of anti -globalists took place in Vancouver. Dressed in all black, with black flags, torches and slogans "No - Olympics!" The tireless satellites of all large international projects are looking forward to the opening of games to prove to the whole world: all this is a “large capitalist circus”, like the Greater Eight summits. Where, when and what kind of surprise the anti -globalists present, an additional headache for the organizing committee, which has already spent $ 1 billion on security measures. But I still had to urgently look for funds for the completion of the Olympic village - the former American investor, PAV by the victim of the global crisis, "wiped the fishing rods." Glory to God, they found money, housing for 15 thousand people were built again using the latest eco -technologies.
But the main problem is the weather. She, as luck would have it, arranged a record winter in Vancouver. This year, the warmest in the last 63 years has been registered in January - with an average temperature plus 8.1 degrees, which is much higher than the norm for this season. The multi -day rain with the beautiful name “Pineapple Express” almost completely washed off the snow from the Mount of the Sipress, where Freestyle and Snowboard competitions are planned. True, Vanoc, the Olympic Organizing Committee of Vancouver, claims to be ready for such a turn of events. Ahead of time prepared and “stored” at the top of the mountains of artificial snow, they are now drowned along the slopes of Sipress using dozens of trucks, bulldozers, and helicopters. Expensive, but the necessary “Salvation Operation”.

From the fan to the speculator

Even now, a few days before the opening of the Olympics, you can safely buy tickets for many competitions. Prices, however, bite. On the site “From a fan to a fan”, a couple of tickets for the opening ceremony is sold for ... $ 45 thousand. At the same time, the seller and the buyer must “unfasten” 20% of its amount to support Vanoc when making a transaction. What is this, legalized speculation in one of the most socially fair countries in the world? If it is impossible to get rid of speculators under any system, then we must try to use them - this is probably the organizing committee ...