A year before Sochi

On February 7, in the center of Moscow, on Manezhnaya Square, a clock was launched that counted down the time until the start of the XXII Olympic Winter Games in Sochi

In the five years since Russia won the right to host the Olympics, its estimated cost has almost quintupled, from 320 billion to 1,526 billion rubles, almost all of which has already been spent. Budget spending instead of 190 billion will amount to at least 1.1-1.2 trillion rudders. But in fact, much more: almost all private investments going to the Olympics are financed by state banks. Since these investments are backed by state guarantees, the hole in the banks' balance sheets will have to be closed by the budget. The cost of the Olympics in Sochi will exceed the most expensive winter Olympics of recent times by at least 15 times. It will cost a quarter more than even the Summer Olympics in Beijing.

This Olympics will be a record one in terms of the number of objects that are expensive and unnecessary for the subsequent life of the city. Sochi is not a winter, but a summer resort, and it lacked not only sports facilities, but also infrastructure: normal landfills, roads, and power supply. It was supposed to build the Kudepstinskaya TPP, but its construction has not yet begun, and the project is terrible from the point of view of ecology: suffice it to say that they are going to build the TPP almost on the beach, in a relic grove.

After inspecting the resort last week, Vladimir Putin dismissed from all posts, including the Olympic Committee, Akhmed Bilalov, head of the North Caucasus Resorts state company and the builder of the Russian Hills ski jump complex. The official reason is the disruption of the construction schedule. But the real one, most likely, is intra-clan disassembly. The question is being decided which state-owned company will get sports facilities after the Olympics: Olympstroy or SK Resorts. In addition, Bilalov is a "foreign frame" for Putin: he is close to Prime Minister Medvedev's team.

On the eve of Putin's visit to Sochi, human rights activists from Human Rights Watch published a report "Olympic anti-records". It gives many examples of how guest workers work at the Olympic construction site, being in fact in the position of slaves - without wages and with passports confiscated by the employer. But this is only part of the problem. The other is a Chekist eye. “Never in my life have I seen so many guards, so many security chiefs, so many checks,” American skier Noah Hoffman is quoted by the Associated Press.