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  Putin's Winter Fairy Tale: Russia's Big Plans for Sochi 2014

Putin's Winter Fairy Tale Russia's Big Plans for Sochi 2014

By Maik Grossekathöfer

Part 2: 'The Most Helpful Thing Would Be a New, Long War with Georgia'

Bityenev parks in front of Rosa Khutor, at the moment a massive construction site. In the site's office container, foreman Alexander Belokobylski shows off his sport center model, all yellow strings, red pins and blue blocks. The plans cover 537 hectares of land and will include a network of 14 ski lifts and 55 kilometers of slopes -- eight of them Olympic, for downhill, slalom, Super G, snowboard and freestyle. Also in the plans are a four-star hotel with 600 rooms and three stadiums, for 14,000, 15,000 und 18,000 spectators.

So far, only five of the ski lifts and 30 kilometers of slopes are under construction. "It's going to be hard to get everything done on time," Belokobylski says. "We need to put on the pressure, then we'll make it." He pulls on his jacket.

Leaving the office container, Belokobylski tramps his way through the snow to point out the ski lift's lower terminal. Then he indicates the restaurant, hardly more than a skeleton at this point, although the ovens and dishwashers are already unpacked and waiting in a corner. "The Kremlin has the same kitchen equipment," he says.

In the future, 9,600 visitors a day are expected in Rosa Khutor -- Sochi wants to start drawing tourists 12 months out of the year, using the Olympic Games as a springboard. In winter they can hit the slopes in the mountains during the afternoon, then in the evening stroll among the kiwi plants along the coast -- that's the plan. Sochi's slogan is "Gateway to the Future."

To achieve this, the government and the oligarchs have made a deal. It follows the formula that if you want to build a hotel in the mountains, if you want to profit from the Games, then you have to build facilities for the Olympics as well.

REUTERS

Then Russian President Vladimir Putin (center) sits together with children from a local sport school as they wait to be lifted up the mountain in Sochi in 2007.

A project like Rosa Khutor has its price, and that price has already doubled. As of November 2008 it had already reached €1 billion. The man who's supposed to pay that is Vladimir Potanin, principal shareholder of the world's largest nickel producer. Potanin is still one of Russia's wealthiest businessmen, but lately even he is having trouble getting credit.

Russian natural gas extractor Gazprom has already opened its hotel -- a five-star one, of course -- but the cross-country ski area the company is also supposed to construct is yet to be seen.

The Olympic Park on Imeritin Bay, down along the coast, is to be funded partially by Oleg Deripaska, a businessman who made his fortune primarily in aluminum. Right now wheeled loaders sit behind blue construction fences, waiting to be put into use. Most of the area is a swamp, with reeds growing meters high.

Dmitry Kapzow, the conservationist, stands atop a stone mound and points to a flock of birds. "This bay is one of the most important resting places for migratory birds," he explains. "There are 200 species here, and a quarter of them are endangered. It doesn't bear thinking about, what will happen if stadiums are built here."

He indicates the beach, and a concrete wall standing in the sand. This is where one of two freight harbors is supposed to be built, to bring in construction materials. "There's no building permit for it and no environmental experts were consulted," Kapzow says. "It makes me furious."

The same fury has Svetlana Berestyeneva in its grip. The house she's supposed to leave is located on the grounds of a former collective farm called Rossiya, which provided tomatoes and cucumbers for half of Russia in Soviet times, four or five harvests a year. There are laurel bushes, figs and tangerine trees in the yard.

Berestyeneva, an unemployed seamstress wearing sweatpants, sits in her kitchen and relates stories. For example that the previous mayor of Sochi told her at a meeting she shouldn't make such a fuss, since people in China were resettled as well, with no objections. Or that she and the others who are supposed to be resettled are being offered the equivalent of just €30 per sotka -- 100 square meters or 1080 square feet -- for their land, although it's actually worth €64,000. And that they're being promised apartments in a high-rise building 15 kilometers (nine miles) inland. "What are we supposed to do there? Most of us make our living from renting rooms to tourists in the summer. We won't be able to do that anymore. And we're not going to find other jobs. Besides, we don't want to leave our ancestors' graves alone."

Berestyeneva founded a citizens' initiative that has written letters to Putin and Medvedev. They've never received an answer. "The government loathes us," she says.

When IOC representatives were in Sochi last April, according to residents along the bay, they weren't allowed to drive old cars and students were put into police uniforms, since at least they spoke a little English. Svetlana Berestyeneva and a group of 25 others wanted to put out posters at the cemetery reading "No to Olympic Games on our bones." A special police unit called OMON stepped in and stopped them.

When land surveyors, accompanied by marshals and 30 police officers, were on one of Berestyeneva's neighbors' property in July, the owner of the land reached for his telephone. His friends came, 150 of them, armed with clubs and gas cans. They kept watch for hours, the police sprayed pepper spray and the next day arrested three of the men. The owner of the house swears there will be a revolt when the bulldozers advance on his land. The property was a gift to his grandfather from Czar Nicholas II.

Berestyeneva says officials were supposed to confiscate her land on November 1. So far no one has come, but she expects them any day. She knows she can't win and that her hands are tied -- a Russian law allows demonstrations to be considered terrorist acts. "I don't want to go to prison, in prison I can't fight for my land. What am I supposed to do?"

She's thinking of starting a hunger strike, but isn't sure if it would help. She looks out her window, toward the border with Abkhazia, only 10 kilometers away. Tbilisi is 440 kilometers.

"The most helpful thing would be a new, long war with Georgia," she says. "That sounds bad, but it's still better than Olympic Games in Sochi."

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