OJ Sochi 2014: a test for Putin .

Putin inspects Sochi 2014.

 One year before the kick-off, the preparation of the Olympic Winter Games is widely criticized. 

At one year of the opening ceremony, this is no longer living in Sochi Olympic time but also Saint-Petersburg and Moscow. Since Thursday, February 7, 11 hours, on Manege Square in the center of the capital, a giant clock ticks off the hours and days that separate Russia from her upcoming Winter Games. A sporting event but also a political test for Vladimir Putin has pledged part of its credibility in this operation. Few delays in some of the work sites have resulted in the dismissal of vice-president of the Olympic Committee! As a general before the battle two days ago that the head of the Kremlin, a sullen, inspects sports facilities that will host, from 7 to 23 February 2014, some 6,000 athletes and organizers. It is a complex winter arose from almost nowhere, nestled at 1500 meters altitude in the foothills of the Caucasus, but only 45 km distant from the shores of the Black Sea lenient. The sun and rain are more frequent than snow, so much so that in late January, a stage of the Russian Cup Nordic Combined provided in Laoura station, had to be canceled. To overcome the weaknesses of the weather, 400 snow cannons are already in operation. These draw their raw material in a giant water tank specially dug mountainside. Russia had no experience like sports, international experts in each discipline were involved.
"We started with nothing, and within two years, a huge work has been done," says the coordinator of the World Cup Nordic Combined Lasse Ottesen. Despite the landslide that damaged the platform last year, it is now "95% ready" as the substantive stage for the first time in the history of the Olympics, it is adjacent. The scale of projects - and corruption associated with them - explained that the 2014 Olympics bill now reaches nearly 36 billion, five times more than the amount originally planned. Vladimir Putin is moved and heads should soon fall. Even Beijing in the summer of 2008, had not spent so much money (33 billion euros). The Russian oligarchs close to the government have been involved in building including hotels. But all in return, hope to benefit from largesse from the Kremlin.
The cost is also environmentally and environmentalists scream foul. Although Sochi is classified as national park, "the situation is catastrophic and is getting worse," complains Vladimir Timaev, president of the Ecological Succession in the North Caucasus, which is also critical programs expropriation of residents. For its part, the Association Human Rights Watch has accused Russia of exploiting thousands of migrant workers to the affected sites. Some of them would receive no salary or day of rest. In this context, it lacks today 22,600 jobs needed to complete the program of construction of hotels.
 

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