The past

What remains of the heritage of the Sochi Olympics-2014

The final month of winter in recent years with positive significant additions to the calendar is not lucky. However, in 2014, their set has not yet been as crushing as it has become over the past 10 years, including February 2024.

The decade of the 22nd Winter Olympiad in Sochi Russia celebrated pathetic and widely, even a small share of reflection was not felt. The gospel emerging from memories and plots completely excluded the context of today, Sochi-2014 appeared as an universal holiday, not overshadowed by anything. Like a serene dream that you do not want to interrupt, because in such a dream there is only one unknown happiness that is impossible in real life.

The girl’s sleep about Russia was a plot technique of three-hour action, which opened the 2014 games. Now I think that the best in the February Sochi, not offense at the athletes and organizers, was a theatrical performance that entered Russian history into the context of world culture. It was cool, but not boring. The directors managed to avoid both false fermentation and the emphasis of the “special speciality”, and some redundancy almost did not interfere.

It was clear that behind two years of preparation, alteration of the already expensive project (initially Fisht did not imply a completely closed roof), technological bindings and three thousand artists stood a huge job and huge costs, but this was the last one, last. At the Winter Olympic Games (and in many summer), this was not observed in originality and technological complexity of action. It was a bike with a leitmotif: we are open, interesting, generous, sincere, mentally rich and talented in everything, not only in sports.

At the closure ceremony, I was sad not because it all ended. Something elusively changed in a couple of weeks: in recent days, fanfares sounded at full power in honor of the medal Russian Furious, as if all the splendor and started in the name of the team victory-it was victory, and not just success.

Something in the stream of enthusiasm was broken down, and the final emergency with the prey of the required number of awards caused even some awkwardness.

And the dramatic events in Ukraine passed into the category of tragic, and something already hung over both of them and all of us. And there was no one to share with, because the wise and everything understanding Yurmikhalych left Sochi, and without growth for me personally, it was another Olympics. Once in the last days it came together and fell on such that it promised nothing good.

Reality surpassed mostly unconscious fears, not because I was not ready for it at all. There were no illusions that there were no illusions as a particular means of sports as a almost universal means of uniting mankind, nor about the long-designated authoritarian vector. Yes, and the Sochi epic, which I willy-nilly tracked for seven years, did not cause enthusiasm for many and absolutely specific reasons. But the presence of even a small hint of some mitigation of the atmosphere somehow reconciled with the Olympics: if we are so killed in the process of doing the impossible, then we want to like the world besides creating a “cities”? Everything is better than showing a grin, which would be illogical in that situation.

The grin, however, did not linger. This primarily ensured the rapid increase in the state, which one little girl called the shitty dissonance in terms of simplicity of sincere. It was another girl, not the one who had a dream about Russia, embodied in a colorful Olympic show, but a fictional heroine, as it seems to me, could also indicate what we all hit. Moreover, to designate already consciously.

“It was an absolutely incredible atmosphere of friendship, mutual assistance and human joy,” as one volunteer wrote about work at the 2014 Games. And he:

“Immediately after the Olympiad, those events in which we are still involved in this day began ... And all this is very sad, since nothing will return the feeling that has gone along with the games on February 23, 2014.”

Does not connect. Nothing is connected. Dissonance. The same.

Sports reserve

About how the idea of ​​Vladimir Potanin to make a “small ski resort for his own” gained an universal scale and ultimately realized, someday they will remove the patriotic blockbuster, which will certainly be present and genuine enthusiasm, and the distrust of skeptics, and the machinations of enemies, and in general everything will be against one thing: there are no such mountains that we will not submit, and there are no such swamps that we are not there, which we are not there are no swamps that we are not They could have drained.

For seven years, they accommodated so much crazy and selfless, sensible and stupid, necessary and useless that it is impossible to describe the cosmic scale on the ultrasound of the “main Soviet health resort” into an exemplary sports reserve. The entire region of the Big Sochi and not only it was raised to the hind legs. Nature itself rebelled against violence, far from all residents rejoiced in happiness that fell on them, and already gigantic estimates grew with terrifying speed, exceeding, according to some estimates, the original by more than four times, but the supervision of the framework did not suggest, although the state with a market economy should take into account the parameters.

Discharge businessmen, perhaps, took into account, but the state did not spare money itself, and urged others, because the matter is noble. Sochi-2014 is one of the few cases when, with colossal, even incomprehensible costs and the theft accompanying them (as without it?) There was practically no criminal case to the end. More recently, the ex-minister of sports Vitaly Mutko innocently explained the reasons for the increase in the costs of building the same long-suffering springboards: "They pour cement and the soil crawls." The soil crawled, and prices took off.

So what? It was necessary to make everything so that the people with a sense of full excuse could say: “But they built it!” We still, not without gloating, paint the suffering of Montreal, which has paid for the summer games-1976 for decades. Yes, where are they! But we won’t regret anything, such a wide nature is such, such a scope, and about the “money of taxpayers”, some spiteful people repeat.

The total expenses for the transformation of the region are more than one and a half trillion rubles. The cost of building sports facilities is almost 325 billion. Of these, state expenses are 103 billion more.

The rest fell on private investors - they were invested in loans taken from VEB. Debt even after restructuring has practically not decreased. The magic formula "built!" - works.

It was possible more modest, and for more or less sane money, but these are claims in the void. It was clear that not everything built by incredible labor would work for its intended purpose, not all sports facilities will gain new life in other regions, gigantism does not correspond to the realities of a small, even popular resort and its usual life, and you won’t feed large -scale holidays. The anticipated difficulties, however, were quite natural, any country and any city that held the Olympic Games are faced with them.

The picture remained the same as on the postcard. Externally and without a detailed consideration - everything was as before, nothing rusted, did not dilapidated, did not collapse. It can be reported that the “Heritage” project works normally.

The FIST Main Stadium was reconstructed for a long time, preparing for the 2018 World Cup, now it is the home arena of the Sochi football club, the average number of spectators in the 46,000th arena-less than five thousand, with the lawn every year, the grass rot due to the design features of Fishta, the marshy Imeret soil and the proximity of the sea. A little better with the filling of the main hockey arena-the Sochi HC project does not use popularity, and the holding of the "large" festivals of the night hockey league with the "presidential" Gala Match can hardly be considered a great achievement. The rest, including the holding of the World Festival of Youth and Students, are mainly political projects.

Both objects are on the balance sheet of the administration of the Krasnodar Territory, the content costs a round amount. Most of the other objects of the coastal cluster and some objects of the mountain cluster were handed over to the Talent and Success to the Sirius Educational Center, in fact, putting up the maintenance of the state. The Washing Arena - on the patch, is periodically moving there HC Sochi during large events in the "large", and year -round children's sports camps are constantly operating. The Ice Cube, which was supposed to become the center of development of Kerling, was transformed into the Academy of Martial Arts. The ice palace "Iceberg", which gave Russia the largest number of medals (figure skating and short track) is a platform for ice shows, matches of amateur hockey teams, concerts. The grandiose skating "Adler Arena", which was not reformatted into what, has become the universal multifunctional platform of the Sirius educational center.

“Ice Cube”, “puck” and “iceberg” were going to disassemble and transfer to other regions, but for various reasons they remained where they were hoisted - in the Olympic Park. The Formula-1 highway, on which the Grand Prix was held eight times, cannot be transferred, so it was simply half cut off. Of the objects of the mountain cluster in terms of professional use, the least lucky was the ski-biathlon Gazprom complex “Laura” and the jumping “Russian hill”, a little larger-the center of the “Sanko”.

The Rosa Khutor ski resort feels better than all, from which, like from a nut nucleus, and a spreading Olympic idea of ​​holding in the subtropical zone of the Winter Olympic Games has grown. They go there, they praise the resort, grumbling slightly for prices.

This is the only object that can recoup. Someday this will happen, but at best in a quarter century.

There are no complaints about how everything worked directly during the games, as well as to the organization. With post -Olympic use is more complicated, albeit not critical. With the holding of international competitions in classical versions of championships, world cups, various tournaments, which was laid down in a grandiose project initially - for well -known reasons, in no way. In addition to the Sirius gaining scale and the desire to saturate the lives of objects with training training camps and camps, there is also attractiveness for tourists with an boundless field for various kinds of “activities” like paid extremely with an instructor in a sanitary-beobslane highway, picnics on Laura or corporate events. Everything is better than nothing.

Here is also a festival of youth and students. World.

Phantom pain

The medals themselves could not appear. They had to be mined in an amount that the people and the high authorities would have arranged. That is, in large quantities. That is, it was desirable to win an unofficial team set-off, which after failure in Vancouver-2010 seemed, to put it mildly, problematic.

Everyone's beloved biathlon was in a protracted and endless crisis, skis was just starting to get out of it, there was no particular hope for skates, not to mention mountain skis and disciplines accompanying them. What was left? Figure skating did not solve the problem, as well as the ability to hook a couple more cherished gold circles. It was urgent to change something, and preferably planned.

There was nothing unnatural in the desire of the hosts as successful as possible - everyone wants it so much, everyone does it. Before my eyes was an example of Canada, which worked for several years according to a special Olympic plan and triumphantly won the medal offset of Vancouver. In our country, this desire was superimposed on the tradition of winning always and everywhere, slightly forgotten from Soviet times, but in the new century a new impulse.

One oil and gas was not enough for recognizing the greatness of Russia, sport was considered the usual tool for supporting the country's prestige, the home Olympiad for demonstrating achievements was best suited, and sports officials could not be imbued with a mission assigned to them.

The adoption of a new state program for the development of physical education and sports was identified by the bar, there was nowhere to retreat.

No fundamental changes in the structure of sports management of the highest achievements occurred and could not occur. But there were ideas quite realized, especially if there was a lot of money. The fact that more than eight dozen (!) Foreign trainers and specialists were involved in the work on Sochi, and not only in lagging technical species, but also in traditional skis, skates, biathlon, spoke about the seriousness of intentions to reduce the reserve, learn our coaching brotherhood of advanced methods, but most importantly - to shoot in Sochi.

Again, nothing reprehensible: since we are open to the world and are included in all processes, from economics to ecology, nothing prevents us from using the import of victorious technologies, even in the emergency version. Somewhere two or three years, one of the coaches did not work out elementary, somewhere it couldn’t work out by definition, as in jumping with a springboard and skiing, but somewhere work in emergency regime nevertheless had its fruits, especially if it was supplemented with accelerated pointed naturalization.

Actually, two hundred percent hits were provided by half of the general success-Victor An in the Short Trek and Vick Wilde, in a snowboard, brought five gold medals in the Russian team. After a protracted conflict with the South Korean Skorye Association, the best short-refresh on the world chose Russia, which provided the best conditions than other applicants. A member of the US national team Vick Wilde ended up in our country, marrying snowboarder Alena Zavarzina. Citizenship for both top sportsmen was provided in an accelerated manner in 2012.

Of the 33 Russian national teams won at the time of the end of the games, two -thirds received wards of foreign coaches. We somehow do not like to talk about it, but you can’t throw a word out of the song. However, the victorious result, as it turned out later, turned out to be intermediate, because for some time the medal table is redeemed depending on the changes with the Russian line, and this is not a cheerful story.

Three days before the finish line, the hosts did not hope for victory in the overall standings, and if not for five Russians with the Korean-American shade of gold medals, then the failure of Vancouvers would shine, because hockey players instead of a cherry on a cake with a grave silence of the “big” flew a brilliantly another quarterfinals, and the “cake”, in fact, did not look impressive.

Such a development of events was supposed to insure the plan of B. that it existed, there was almost no doubt.

In the presentation of the ex-head of the Sochi anti-doping laboratory, the whole world, but now forgotten by Grigory Rodchenkov, the plan looks comprehensive and all-winging, but this is its interpretation. Rodchenkov is an unpleasant character, but he was cultivated by a system, and enjoyed its support, and the medal race in the main sports forums involved his participation in one way or another. There was no doubt that there were no doubt that the exposures of the ex-Hordenager who escaped in the United States will certainly reach Sochi-2014. The scale of organized violations was most likely exaggerated, but even the very fact of an attempt to forge, later filed by our propaganda as a personal initiative of one unscrupulous person, made the effect of an exploded bomb.

This was a blow not only for Sochi and athletes, but also for everyone who felt the 2014 Games as “hot. Winter. Their". IOC and personally president of the organization Thomas Bach, I believe, were offended, annoyed and angry with the maximum. Their verdict deprived the Russian team at once four gold and eight silver awards. To the honor of the sports arbitration court, most of the awards for insufficient proof of evidence were left, the triumph of the ski marathon Alexander Legkov and the skeletonist Alexander Tretyakov was justified, but the two gold of the crews of Alexander Zubkov “left”, like the silver award of Russian biathletes in the relay, and now continues to remain under the threat of the golden biathlon biathlon Quartet.

None of the naturalized athletes under the trial fell, which indirectly testified to the application of prohibited methods of “protection” exclusively by electoral agreement. The “hole in the wall” of the anti -doping laboratory and the “plumber Blokhin”, allegedly replacing the samples, became memes. It was the same spoon of tar, which spoils the barrel of honey, although you can argue about the proportion of ingredients.

Naturally, now they are remembered about the doping scandal in relation to Sochi-2014 only in cases where it is required to be indignant at the machinations of the West. The topic is closed, rusophobes, IOC, WADA and other sports organizations are guilty, "performing whose will."

Not a single doping case was investigated to the end in Russia. After February 2022, the indulgence for the sins of the past, real and future was received at all: "We won, and they envy us."

"Russophobes" and other "evil spirits"

From an interview with the then chairman of the Board of the Board of Sochi-2014, Elena Anikna Athlet.ru, which most carefully went through the inheritance of the Games-2014, it follows that the current unfriendly countries have done a lot in order for Sochi to receive the coveted Olympics, prepared and spent it at the highest level.

At the initial, even estimate stage, an authoritative Canadian company Ecosan was engaged in an assessment of the possibilities for creating a large ski resort for a year. At the second stage, the same Canadians were asked to consider the possibilities of placing already the entire mountain cluster, without which it was impossible to start a specific work. It was attended by a “team of foreign consultants” from the USA, Canada, Great Britain, and Switzerland. A good list, just sign. The Swiss specialist in the highest class Bernard Rusi, after a weekly inspection, gave the final good to prepare the main ski routes. The unnamed representative of the United States tortured trainings before the decisive session of the IOC in Guatemala, even if Anikina did not need his recommendations, her emotional performance already moved the hall.

About the IOC itself, in the process of building and preparing games, Elena Romanovna had an opinion that "there is no better organization in the world." Of course, all this belonged to the times of 15–20 years ago, the current words that were appropriate for the occasion of the destroyed basic principle “sport outside politics” were said, but it is important what happened and what happened.

Yes, I forgot to mention that the theatrical show at the opening ceremony with a television audience of three billion people, in fact, was preparing an international brigade, and the idea of ​​the Channel One, thanks to the US citizen, the outstanding scenographer Georgy Tsypin, was preparing.

This is not to belittle the role of its own, but to the fact that Russia could attract world -class excellent specialists from any country, and nothing more closely and fruitful international cooperation prevented.

There will be lovers who will say that foreigners helped to promote a completely crazy project “Sochi-2014” in order for Russia to go broke, foreign coaches sabotage work on a quiet way, and international officials only pretended that they like everything, hiding the secret Russophobia, but I will leave all kinds of conspiracy versions in a hurra-patriotic spirit with conditional wrestlers with conditional. "Anglo -Saxons."

We were treated as a large, interesting and generally open country, and the 2014 Olympics as a sociocultural phenomenon of the New Time of its superiority, even with reservations, but fulfilled. For 17 days - for sure.

Two quotes shares exactly 10 years, they are from different eras. One, from speech at the closing ceremony, belongs to Thomas Bach, for whom the games in Sochi were a debut as the president of the IOC:

“All people opened by new ideas saw the face of the new Russia, effective and friendly, patriotic and open to the world.”

Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev, on whose presidency it was four years of preparation for the main sporting event for Russia, had just spoke about the current “discriminatory” solutions of the IOC and the “festival that we stolen”:

“This is an absolutely pascular story that characterizes the morals that reign in the International Olympic Committee and in international sports structures.”

The main thing is to know who to hang all the dogs for. About those who "violated Olympic ideals", even the iron is not silent. Only this does not relieve questions that, like the 2014 games, are also exactly 10 years. As for other people's sins, their presence, if we follow traditional values, does not relieve their own. The principle is now, to put it mildly, unpopular.

“I wanted to believe that everything that happened in Sochi is not an illusion and not crafty, not a desire to appear better than we really are, but a sincere and passionate desire to be like that. When the Olympic fire faded in the main square of the coastal cluster, many sincerely cried, but no one knew that the light sadness of the future undeclared war was sluggish, and the world would change such shocks, before which sports triumphs and dramas are smaller and even descends somewhere. ”

I wrote this in February 2015 and I see nothing to add.

The blue sea, the white mountains, the color of the Olympic lights, the lively breath of the games, the fleeting feeling of unexpected happiness - everything was. It was and was not. I would compare with sleep, but I did not dream of playing 2014.