Sochi and Vladivostok

Corruption, unfinished buildings, painted grass, rumors about fabulous costs, environmental problems-through all this we went before Sochi, preparing for the APEC-2012 summit in Vladivostok.

I remember how, before the summit, Vladivostok turned into a gigantic construction site: bridges, roads appeared on the island of Russian, where we used to travel with “savages” with classmates, a university complex grew up. Together with large -scale objects, rumors grew and widened about the no less large -scale theft of “Summit” money, about the dubious quality of the new infrastructure. I remember how I was nervous when I was driving on a brand new shiny shuttle along with other journalists (many of them were foreigners) on the Russian Island on the opening day of the summit. The acute -eyed correspondents of all kinds of “post”, “Times” and “Gardian” from the bus took pictures of the bay and a beautiful new bridge, which was handed over just two weeks before the opening of the forum, old, but re -painted five -story buildings and a new hotel, not far from which a miraculously rescued from the excavators, a rickety wooden house with a bakers hung on a rope.

A couple of days ago, a friend of the American asked me what the word with the letters "C", "O", "familiar to the four" and "Inverted N", which he sees on the inscriptions during the broadcast of the winter games

We - the Far Eastern journalists who heard about the pre -Sitt scandals - quietly hoped that nothing would collapse, would not break and not squeak, at least for a while. A few days later I realized that I was in vain: from conversations with foreign colleagues, it became clear that they generally liked the event, and Vladivostok - warm, salty and alive - struck many at all. Representations of APEC guests about Russia before the summit were limited by Moscow, St. Petersburg and white noticeable Siberia in the style of the British-American version of Dr. Zhivago. The Far East for them-and, to be honest, for many Russians from the Western capitals-was something "even further than Siberia", with bears, tigers and gloomy people in ears.

A year and a half passed after the summit. Students in the FEFU campus, where the economic forum was held, was settled much later, the Hyatt hotel has not yet been completed, the sections of roads built to the summit collapsed, and criminal cases have been started. Despite this, Vladivostok managed to attract attention and foreign investments. In January last year, FEFU became the venue for the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum, in September 2013 the Far Eastern Investment Congress took place there. According to the administration of the Primorsky Territory, in 2012 a five -fold increase in foreign investment in the economy was recorded. German Siemens, Scandinavian SKF and NYCOMED PHARMA, British Ernst & Young, Korean Kotra, Lotte Confectionary Co Ltd and Japanese Komatsu are investing.

A couple of days ago, a familiar American in a conversation on Skype asked me what the word with the letters “C”, “O”, “sign similar to the four” and “Inverted N”, which he sees on inscriptions during the broadcast of the winter games. Then he apologized for a long time for not even reading the word "Sochi" on Cyrillic. They know a little abroad about Russia, but judging by the experience of Vladivostok, the Sammit and, possibly, the Olympics, despite the tons of problems related to them, still inflicted the names of two more Russian cities on the world map.

Evgenia Kulgina is a freelance correspondent for RS in the Khabarovsk Territory, laureate of the competition of young journalists "Call of the XXI century"