Other Russia reports:

A Moscow press-conference of ecologists, human rights activists and Sochi residents has suggested that the International Olympic Committee(IOC) has grounds to cancel the winter Olympic Games, set to take place in the Black Sea resort of Sochi in 2014. The press-conference, titled “The 2014 Sochi Olympics. Opportunism, incompetence, disregard for the law – the major threat to the collapse of the National Project,” met in Moscow on April 10th.

Garry Kasparov, the leader of the United Civil Front party, noted that what is currently happening in the region does not correspond to the original plan as it was presented in Guatemala. Several planned construction sites are currently unbuildable, after geodesic surveys discovered underground problems. Panelists named the Imeretinsky Bukhta, which has an exceptionally high water table, with groundwater just two meters beneath the surface of the soil, and where “15-20 meter-long pilings drown.”

“There are things that cannot be done, even if a billion dollars is buried into them,” Kasparov said.

Another concern raised by the panelists was the unprecedented level of spending required to pull the Olympic games together, which Kasparov said is “beating all the records.” Sochi lacks much of the infrastructure of previous Olympic locations, and the original expense prediction of 6 billion dollars is shockingly low. Ivan Starikov of the People for Democracy and Justice party, commented that the current estimate for transportation infrastructure alone was now set at 7 billion dollars. Other cities beaten out by Sochi for the bid to host the games could take the IOC to court, Starikov said, as total cost was a factor in making the original decision.

One Russian Member of Parliament, Viktor Ilyukhin, told the press on April 3rd that the Sochi Olympics could cost more than the last three winter Olympic games combined.

Greenpeace, the international ecological watchdog, may also take the IOC to court. Dmitri Kaptsov, a representative of the “North Caucasus Ecological Watch,” said that Greenpeace is planning to protest the lack of environmental planning before construction, arguing that leading the Olympics in Sochi would cause a regional eco-catastrophe. To date, no expert reports on construction or ecological matters have been completed.

Sochi residents were also present at the conference to speak about the thousands of families facing eviction in the Black Sea resort. Residents complained that government officials were seizing land without providing adequate compensation or equally valued housing. Panelists also called unconstitutional a so-called “Olympic law,” which expedites the process of taking resident’s homes, and bars locals from seeking judicial protection for their property.

The press-conference reached a troubling conclusion, that Olympic planners in Sochi were using the Games as a means to attain personal wealth at the expense of local citizens and Russian taxpayers.

“It must be stated, that the present course will lead to the destruction of a unique Black Sea resort, the massive violation of Russian citizens’ civil rights, [and] the misuse of funds earmarked for the games,” a statement by participants reads. “It will damage Russia’s image, and ultimately, will put even the possibility of leading the Olympic games in Sochi into question.”

As Kaptsov explained, the IOC has the right to move the Olympics to a different city in the case that the country hosting the games does not meet its obligations. As an example, the presenters noted the 1976 Olympics, which were moved from Denver in the United States to Montreal in Canada.

The press-conference did suggests a way to ameliorate the state of affairs in Sochi. They proposed enacting a strict citizen’s control of the preparations, and suggested the possibility of moving some of the major Olympic facilities to other Russian regions that are more suited to hosting the winter Olympics. A Citizen’s Council with the obligation of overseeing the preparations in Sochi is currently in the works.

In an apparent last-minute effort to unite two world leaders for the last time, US President George W. Bush will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 6th. The meeting will take place in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi, scheduled to host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. In early May, Putin is expected to assume the post of Prime Minister, as his successor, Dmitri Medvedev, takes office.

Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, told press that the pair will discuss European security, including missile defense and the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty. The two countries have been locked at an impasse on US proposals to locate defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, with Russia threatening to point its nuclear warheads at Europe if the plans go through.

Bush and Putin have had a friendly personal relationship, even as rhetoric on either side of the Atlantic has escalated in tone. At their first meeting, Bush was jovial, saying: “I looked the man in the eye. I was able to get a sense of his soul.”

Still, critics of the Kremlin have argued that Bush has failed to voice concerns at the erosion of democratic and human rights that has taken place in Russia since Putin took office. Their final meeting, framed by a resort mired in a controversial program of evicting area residents, may exemplify that point.

As the Sobkor@ru news agency reported on March 27th, some four thousand Sochi residents are under threat of forcible eviction from their homes. Authorities need to free up space for the construction of a new Olympic park. Residents claim the compensation offered for their property is minimal, and that many families will receive no compensation at all.

The first round of evictions has already begun, with the displacement of 15 refugee families from the neighboring break-away Republic of Abkhazia, The Sunday Times newspaper reported.

Some two hundred construction projects are planned for Sochi in the next seven years, including sporting facilities, railroads, highways, as well as a new airport. This makes for an expensive endeavor, with experts expecting costs to rise as high as 24 billion dollars, or double the current estimates. (By comparison, the 2006 winter Olympics in Turin, Italy cost approximately 3 billion dollars, and the 2010 games in Vancouver, Canada are estimated to cost around 4 billion dollars). As result, real estate prices in Sochi and the surrounding areas have grown by 500 percent, making them some of the highest in Russia.

The News.rin.Ru news agency spoke with Andrei Loginov, one of the residents facing eviction:

“When we found out that Sochi won the bid, we were beside ourselves with joy,” he explained. “We thought that this would bring investment to the city, and would create new jobs. Now we understand that only a small chosen group will become rich, and the ordinary people like us will be left standing by the broken washtub.”

We've previously reported on how Russia's attempt to create an Olympic venue in Sochi is rapidly coming unglued in a predictable Russian manner. Now, the Moscow Times reports that the IOC is finally getting the message as well.

The Sochi 2014 Olympics will be among the most challenging to prepare for, a key International Olympic Committee official warned Tuesday, just a few days after the country's Olympic construction chief stepped down amid worries that costs were ballooning out of control. "It's a special situation and we will have to do a lot," Jean-Claude Killy, chairman of the IOC's coordination committee for the games, said during a meeting with Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov and other government officials responsible for the Olympic preparations. Killy, a French Alpine skiing legend, made his comments after touring some of the prospective construction sites in Sochi and Krasnaya Polyana, the planned main ski venue near the city, earlier Tuesday with a delegation of 13 other IOC members.

Sochi suffers from an almost complete lack of Olympic-class facilities, and their construction will largely have to start from scratch. Some 200 facilities, including roads and electricity lines, need to be built, an effort that will require at least $12 billion in investment. Semyon Vainshtok, the head of the Olimpstroi state corporation responsible for preparing Sochi for the games, resigned abruptly Thursday, amid accusations of mismanagement and cost overruns. Vainshtok's departure, just seven months after being appointed to the job, came after months of criticism from lawmakers and state officials over ballooning costs as real estate prices in Sochi have soared. But Killy said Tuesday that he was impressed by the preparations so far and was "absolutely sure" that Russia and the IOC would succeed in organizing the Olympics.

In a report on the IOC visit, Channel One television's evening newscast showed a motorcade of black sport utility vehicles raising dust as they sped along a winding road on their visit to the Krasnaya Polyana resort. Zubkov joined the IOC delegation for part of their reconnaissance mission, the channel said. Sergei Grigoryev, a spokesman for the Olimpstroi corporation, said IOC commission members were shown sites in Sochi and nearby Krasnaya Polyana, where developers plan to build an Olympic village and skiing routes. They were also shown designs for future facilities and an existing ski resort built by Gazprom, he said. The commission was also scheduled to receive a progress report on upgrading the Sochi airport, the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee said in a statement on its web site. IOC officials are to give their impressions of their visit at a news conference Wednesday.

The IOC visit is the first since Sochi was picked to host the 2014 games at an IOC meeting last July in Guatemala, where President Vladimir Putin lobbied hard for Sochi's bid and promised that the government would invest heavily in the area's infrastructure. The IOC delegation will visit next in 2009. When Vainshtok resigned last Thursday, government officials said the change in command had been planned in advance and would not affect the pace of preparations. But a flurry of subsequent media reports suggested that Vainshtok had quit because he realized the task was too unwieldy. "It is very difficult to make Sochi an Olympic city," an unidentified official said, RIA-Novosti reported. "There are many infrastructure limitations -- no electricity, no roads, no way to get cargoes there needed for building."

The new chief of Olimpstroi, former Sochi mayor Viktor Kolodyazhny, said Tuesday that he wasn't going to reshuffle his staff. "Why would I do that?" Kolodyazhny said. "It's professionals that work there. They suit me." The corporation has already started designing a bobsled run for the Olympics and aims to complete the work next January, he said. The bobsled route and some other planned facilities for the Olympics would run through a nature reserve, which has angered environmentalists, including Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund.

Writing in the Moscow Times, Echo Moskvy commentator Yulia Latynina looks at the Sochi olympics:

Russia's winning of the right to host the Sochi Olympics in 2014 must be the happiest event that has happened for Russia in the last couple of years. International Olympic Committee members were given the red-carpet treatment when they came to Sochi. They stayed at Oleg Deripaska's elite hotel consisting of 24 swank rooms with interior decorating done by the same designer who did work for the queen of Belgium. LR: In other words, they have no idea what Russia is really like, but they're going to send lots of unwary tourists and athletes in to find out. Looking back, Russia had no real chance of winning this contest because Olympic officials gave Sochi the lowest possible rating. The main argument against Sochi was that every Olympic facility has to be built from scratch. Moreover, no one has an idea how to solve transportation problems. LR: Indeed. Just try to book a direct flight from abroad to Sochi. You can't! Just try to fly into Moscow and then travel to Sochi. How? In a disgusting train that takes years to arrive? A rickety, horrifying Russian domestic flight? Yikes!

Russia's saving grace, however, was that the IOC's final decision was made by bureaucrats rather than the experts who visited Sochi. On the eve before the IOC announced its decision, President Vladimir Putin personally met with every key IOC bureaucrat, even though it was clear after the preliminary vote that Pyongchang would be the likely winner.

The only thing that saved the day for Russia was the Lord's intervention. Or perhaps Putin's. I don't know what Putin said to the IOC members. LR: Maybe he whispered "polonium." Or maybe he didn't say anything, but carried a big suitcase. I do remember, however, Putin telling U.S. President George W. Bush some time ago about a cross that he found after a fire in his dacha. And Bush informed the whole world after the "lobster summit" in Maine, that Putin cannot tell a lie. Since not all of the IOC members are Christian, Putin could not mention the story about the cross to them. On the other hand, he could have modified the story by saying that, in addition to the cross, he also found a Quran and Buddhist beads unscathed by the fire. Whatever the case, every member of the IOC looked Putin straight in the eyes and understood that this person truly cannot tell a fib. Even if Putin said there would be no more traffic jams in Russia, he would be telling the truth. LR: Chamberlain also looked Hitler in the eye.
Putin is certainly able to pull off this feat. After all, when North Korea hosted the Youth Festival in Pyongyang in 1989, there were no traffic jams because everybody over 40 years of age was evicted from the city. Why not oust everyone who could possibly cause traffic jams in Sochi? Authorities could give only tourists, athletes, service personnel and journalists access to the city. LR: The Chechens are already practicing their luge.

This is wonderful news because the $12 billion allocated for the Olympics will create a gold rush -- particularly for bureaucrats if you consider the kickbacks typically payed by construction companies for lucrative building contracts.

It is wonderful because it will do more than give Putin a chance to develop a new southern capital at the expense of state funds and Russia's oligarchs. It should be noted that Putin, who adores recreation, receives guests more often in Sochi -- and in extreme cases at Novo-Ogaryovo -- than in the Kremlin.

The Sochi victory is wonderful for a different reason. Imagine this: Putin flies to Guatemala City to attend the IOC meeting. He personally meets with each IOC member. Nonetheless, the members of the committee decide against Sochi based on the low rating given by the experts. If this happened, Russians would have cried: "Again the West has offended us. See how much the West hates us? The evil hand of the imperialists of the Fourth Reich have reached Sochi." LR: Yes indeed, and where are the wonderful words of praise for the West now that it has awarded Russia the games? Russians are silent. What a nightmare! This have would meant disgrace for Russia, a formal break with West and a third term for Putin. Thank God those nasty scoundrels in the West remained our friends, placing their trust in Putin and keeping their boundless faith in Russia's bright future.

Blogger Paul Goble explains how the Kremlin may have bitten off more than it can chew in winning the Sochi games, providing its enemies with a huge platform for attack. For instance, it's going to come out that Sochi isn't really a Russian city, certainly not a Slavic one, and that its giant population of 20,000 Muslims hasn't been able to get permission to build a Mosque. Goble points out how the Kremlin has outraged Muslims by opposing independence for Kosovo and, in classically paranoid neo-Soviet style, attempting to cut off their foreign aid.

The International Olympics Committee’s decision last week to name the Sochi as the venue for the 2014 winter games is being widely celebrated in Moscow as a triumph for Vladimir Putin and a recognition by the world community of Russia’s successful recovery. But regardless of how true either of those propositions may be, the Sochi games, even though they are still seven years in the future, are already having an impact on the calculations of various groups concerning three critical ethno-national issues in Southern Russia and the Northern Caucasus.

In an essay posted online last Friday, Sergei Markedonov, one of Moscow’s most thoughtful commentators on the Caucasus, argues that the games themselves and the attention they inevitably attract will affect the Circassians, the Abkhazians, and Georgian-Russian ties. First of all, Markedonov suggests, the games will highlight an issue to which the Circassian nationalities – the Adygei, the Kabardinians, the Cherkess, and the Shapsug – have long been seeking to attract attention: assigning responsibility for the expulsion of their forefathers from the Caucasus in the 19th century and securing redress for that act. In the 1860s and 1870s, the tsarist authorities expelled more than a million Circassians to the Ottoman Empire, an action that Circassians in Russia and abroad insist was a genocide but that Moscow has consistently denied was anything of the sort. Now, the Circassians will have a broader stage on which to make their case.

Although Sochi today lies in an ethnic Russian region, its name and its history are Circassians, facts that the nearby Adygeis and the Circassians abroad are certain to make much of. At the very least, their campaign is likely to tie Moscow’s hands as far as folding Adygeia into the Russian region surrounding it until after 2014.

Second, because Sochi is located so close to Abkhazia, that longstanding “frozen conflict” will become more difficult to address in the run up to the games. Indeed, Markedonov says, for many in Moscow, "when we write Sochi, we have Abkhazia on our minds." On the one hand, Moscow will be promoting the development of the broader Sochi area that includes Abkhazia, something that will do little to weaken secessionist sentiment there. And on the other hand, the Moscow analyst argues, the Russian government will be reluctant to take any steps, including unilateral recognition or the use of force, that could undermine the positive and upbeat message about itself that Russian propagandists are already insisting upon. Instead, Moscow will certainly want to project itself as a peacemaker, as a country interested in reducing tensions and solving problems rather than exacerbating them. But that may prove more difficult, Markedonov continues, than Moscow may currently assume.

And that leads to the third set of ethno-national issues that the Sochi Olympics are already affecting: relations between Moscow and Tbilisi. The Russian government can reasonably expect that the publicity around Sochi is likely to restrain the Georgian authorities from using force: After all, if Tbilisi did, the whole world would be watching. At the same time, however, Moscow, -- which would clearly benefit for purposes of the games in having more cooperative relations with Georgia -- may find its hands tied as well: It could seek improved ties by sacrificing Abkhazia and South Osetia – but leaders in both might then act in ways neither Moscow nor Tbilisi would like.

And any retreat from Moscow’s forward leaning policy in these two “unrecognized” states would generate anger among Russian nationalists and imperialists who already believe that Putin has made too many concessions to others for his personal needs rather than for the national interests of the country. But looming behind all of these ethnic situations is the deteriorating security situation across the entire northern Caucasus. As an article in today’s “Nezavisimaya gazeta” noted, Moscow is worried about the situation there because of rising crime and greater activism by rebel units. Nonetheless, Putin can count on Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov to stay on message: Over the weekend, Kadyrov claimed there is no war in his republic and invited people from around the world to visit “the Chechen Switzerland” – those cities and towns where the post-Soviet wars were earlier most intense.

But in other remarks at the same time, Kadyrov advanced some demands that suggest he too may be counting on Sochi to affect Moscow’s calculations: He suggested that Chechnya must be allowed to retain more of its petroleum earnings and be helped to build its own refining capability as a step toward energy independence.

UPDATE ON JULY 11. Ethnic communities affected by the Sochi Olympics are already weighing in. A press spokesman for the Abkhaz president said in a Kreml.org commentary posted online yesterday that the Abkhaz are pleased that the games will be held near their territory. But various social organizations in Adygeia have protested the decision, although government officials there say they support it.

UPDATE ON JULY 16. Ravza Ramazanova, the heaad of the Yasin Muslim Organization in Sochi has expresed the hope that media attention to her city will force the local officials to allow for the construction of a mosque for the city's 20,000 Muslims. She told Regions.ru today that her group has been seeking approval to build a mosque for 13 years without success.

Question: Which city is closer to Sochi, host of the 2014 Olympic games: the Russian capital of Moscow or the Chechen capital of Grozny?

Answer: Grozny is 299.85 miles from Sochi, an easy walk through mountains they know only too well, for the Chechen rebels, while Moscow is 844.25 miles from Sochi. Russia couldn't protect the Dubrovka theater which is actually in Moscow from the Chechens (it also claims it couldn't protect two Moscow apartment buildings from them). Will it be able to protect remote Sochi, right in the the Chechen's back yard? Notice, too, Sochi's proximity to the Georgian border; Sochi is only barely in Russian territory. Even closer than Grozny is the disputed Kodori Gorge area, including Ingushetia, where Russia has already launched attacks on Georgian territory that are under UN investigation, and where Russia regularly faces terrorist outbreaks which could erupt into a shooting war at any time.

Question: Who will get to Sochi first for the Olympics, Chechen terrorists or Vladimir Putin?

Answer: Well, we'll just have to wait and see, won't we. Seems like the IOC is willing to gamble many people's lives on the answer. That doesn't seem quite consistent with the Olympic spirit. Perhaps they've forgotten Munich already . . .

Writing in the Moscow Times Igor Nikolayev, director of the strategic analysis department for the auditing consultancy FBK, has this to say about Sochi's financing:

The federal program for the development of Sochi's resorts from 2006 to 2014 was a strong factor in the city getting the XXII Winter Olympic Games. The government earmarked $12.2 billion for the Sochi Games. This is clearly a colossal amount of money and compares impressively to the spending of other countries. The total cost of the 2006 Games in Turin was 3.4 billion euros ($4.6 billion). Perhaps China's example was contagious for Russia: Beijing wanted the 2008 Summer Games so badly that it was willing to invest $33 billion to win the contest. While the development plan definitely leaves you with a positive impression, it is easy to get the feeling that some of the cost estimates were not well thought out.

• The cost to construct the start and finish areas, the stands for spectators and journalists, and the snowmaking equipment for the downhill skiing center has been listed at 468,264,000 rubles ($18.2 million). It's as if a calculator came up with the number on its own.

• The construction of a large hockey arena to seat 12,000 is budgeted at $220 million -- all of it federal money. The price tag for another arena for figure skating, which should hold 12,000 people, interestingly enough is just $55 million. Thus, the cost of building one arena is four times the cost of building another arena of the very same size.

• Another example is an 8,000-seat, closed speed skating center that is projected to cost $42 million. Moscow's Krylatskoye speed skating complex, which holds 10,000, cost exactly twice that amount -- $84 million.

There is more than enough nonsense like this in the development plan to allow us to go on for a while, but the government has approved it all. This is a problem not only for the federal planners in Moscow but for Sochi itself. The government made the $12 billion price tag that it was willing to pay for the Games the main argument in its favor. But the least they could have done was take a serious approach to putting together the details of the development and funding program.

So Russia is already planning to spend nearly three times more than Turin, Italy spent to host the last winter games, and apparently its cost figures constitute a wildly low estimate.

In doing so, Russia will fill a region that is already patronized by Russia's rich and famous with investment, while the rest of the country languishes in poverty.

And then there's the little problem of the Chechen rebels which, as one can see from the following post, is not quite solved . . .

Garry Kasparov, writing in the Wall Street Journal:

The international community is justly concerned about China's crackdown in Tibet in the run-up to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. But perhaps some attention could be spared for the suffering of Russians ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics, scheduled to take place in the Russian town of Sochi.

An International Olympic Committee official visited Sochi last week and remarked: "Here you start from nothing." Jean-Claude Killy went on to say that the complete lack of infrastructure only meant it was "an incredible chance" to build a resort.

The original estimate for the Sochi Games was $12 billion, more than was spent on the last three Winter Olympics combined. Now the organizers are saying $20 billion, and it's only 2008. This is only the beginning of yet another massive shift of Russian assets from public to private hands – this time under the cover of the Olympic rings.

Three weeks ago, I and other Russian opposition members held a press conference with residents of Sochi. We read aloud from a new law pertaining to the Olympic site. It gives the state the ability to confiscate as much land as it wants in the area, with no possible appeal. With one decision, people will lose their homes and businesses and will have no avenue of protest.

The government announced that it will soon begin to appropriate land, and that the current owners will get a "fair-market price," which of course will be set by the government. During the IOC's visit, a group of local protesters tried to unfurl an "SOS" banner and were physically attacked by the police.

President George W. Bush recently visited Vladimir Putin in Sochi and did not object to the Kremlin's assault on private ownership. Perhaps this is the same "quiet diplomacy" advocated by U.S. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley a few weeks ago, when he was asked about the Chinese crackdown in Tibet. In other words, we are not going to hear this U.S. president say "I am a Tibetan" any time soon.

I have had a painfully close-up view of over seven years of Western quiet diplomacy toward Russia. "Quiet diplomacy" can be roughly translated as, "we'll cut a deal no matter what." During this period we have moved from a frail new democracy to a KGB dictatorship. Based on such results, it is long past time to try something noisier.

Despite their bluster over missile defense, Kosovo and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, there are only two things that Mr. Putin and his gang really care about: total control inside of Russia and legitimacy outside of Russia.

Legitimacy in Western eyes is clearly important to Mr. Putin. Otherwise, why not simply change the constitution, or ignore it entirely, and remain as president for a third term? Why did he even bother with the rigged elections?

The answer: the hundreds of billions of dollars flowing out of Russia in the hands of Mr. Putin's oligarchs need a safe home. London's capital markets, Swiss banks, real estate, energy companies across Europe – this is where much of the Russian treasury has been going for the past eight years. In order to maintain such a cozy arrangement of mutual enrichment with the West, Russia must maintain a democratic façade.

I used to compare our vanishing democracy to that of countries like Venezuela and Zimbabwe. But events have shown how wrong I was to make such comparisons – and how unfair I was being to Hugo Chávez and Robert Mugabe. Venezuela's Mr. Chávez, little more than an oil-empowered hooligan, actually lost a recent referendum on expanding his powers by 2%. Vladimir Churov of the Russian Central Election Committee would never have stood for such an embarrassment!

Even Mr. Mugabe, Zimbabwe's old-fashioned despot, is too shy to publish victorious results in the latest elections. Perhaps Mr. Churov can be rented out to other would-be dictators who wish to maintain pleasant relations with the champions of democracy in America and the European Union.

After Mr. Putin's handpicked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, "won" the Russian presidency last March, the leaders of the free world lined up to congratulate him on, as German chancellor Angela Merkel put it, "a smooth transition of power." Were phone calls made to celebrate a similar transition in Cuba, when Fidel Castro handed the reins to his brother?

Legitimizing their capital in the West is the Kremlin's top priority, and those congratulatory phone calls to Mr. Medvedev were worth countless billions of dollars. The last hurdle, transition of power, has been surmounted with barely a word of protest from the leaders of the G-7 nations. The return of Silvio Berlusconi, a self-declared European "advocate" for Mr. Putin and his gang, can only make things worse.

It doesn't take a whole lot of courage to criticize the rule of Fidel Castro or Kim Jong Il. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown sounded quite tough criticizing Zimbabwe's elections. But when it comes to nations like Russia and China, issues of basic human rights suddenly become "complicated."

I am all for refusing to bless the Chinese show. But at the same time, it's not fair to suddenly drag the world's greatest athletes into a battle that politicians should have had the courage to fight. Will Russians have to wait until 2014 to see support for our own struggle for human rights?

Reuters reports:

Russian police clashed on Wednesday with local people opposed to the destruction of their homes under plans for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, during a tour by Olympic inspectors. A resident said police beat some people and detained several others at a local cemetery near the site for the main Olympic venues, during a traditional visit to relatives' graves ahead of the Russian Orthodox Easter on Sunday. In a statement, police in the Black Sea resort of Sochi denied beating anyone, saying they were only trying to prevent a group of about 100 local residents from disrupting the IOC inspection. Locals in Nizhne-Imeretinskaya Bukhta have been protesting over the Olympic construction plans, which are likely to involve the demolition of some houses in the settlement, but deny they were planning to stage a protest there. "We were at the cemetery. Our village was surrounded by police. There were 200 of them. They did not let anyone in or out. They came to the cemetery and beat people up," local resident Andrei Korutun told Reuters by telephone. One local official "grabbed my wife, who is pregnant, by the stomach and threw her to the ground," he said. Police parked buses to conceal the cemetery from the visiting IOC officials, who were about 800 metres (yards) away at the time of the clashes, Korutun said. "We shouted out to them for help, we are sure they would have heard," he added. Sochi police said in a statement that reports "in some media about a supposed fight between Sochi police officers and Sochi residents, about people being beaten, are not true." Steps had been taken to ensure public order in line with normal practice in Russia and other countries, it added. Russian Olympic officials say very few homes will be demolished to make way for games venues, and that owners will be properly compensated.

Last week we reported on how opposition political groups were exposing the Kremlin's disastrous failure in organizing the Sochi Olympiad. No sooner had this story broken than the boss of the affair was forced to resign in disgrace, conclusively proving the truth of the charges. The Moscow Times reports:

Semyon Vainshtok, the head of the Olimpstroi state corporation responsible for preparing Sochi for the 2014 Olympics, resigned abruptly Thursday, amid accusations of mismanagement and cost overruns. Viktor Kolodyazhny, the mayor of Sochi, was named as Vainshtok's replacement.

Vainshtok's departure, just seven months after being appointed to the job, came after months of criticism from lawmakers and state officials, who said the cost of preparations for the Olympics had ballooned to nearly $12 billion. At a news briefing Thursday at Olimpstroi's Moscow office to formalize the handover, Vainshtok introduced Kolodyazhny as his successor. In front of television cameras, Vainshtok hugged Kolodyazhny and wished him luck. Kolodyazhny spoke only briefly, saying merely, "The preparations will be finished by the deadline."

Earlier, Regional Development Minister Dmitry Kozak told reporters that Olimpstroi would now work to complete the preparations ahead of time. Afterward, Vainshtok insisted that he had done what was expected of him, and it was time to step aside. "I had a certain task: to begin the preparations for the Olympic Games, and I have fulfilled it," Vainshtok said in an interview on the street outside the Olimpstroi office. "I am satisfied, by now 46 billion rubles ($1.97 billion) has been transferred to the accounts of Olimpstroi." Vainshtok, 60, added that he had had "a number of very good offers [of jobs] but nothing from the state."

Officials sought to downplay Vainshtok's resignation, saying he had planned it for some months. Kozak said at the briefing that he had agreed with Vainshtok in September that he would leave after completing his allotted task. "He has done as planned," Kozak said. "I see no politics in what has happened." He added that Vainshtok would soon be given a high-ranking state award. Both President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov on Thursday praised Vainshtok for his work at Olimpstroi.

Vainshtok, formerly head of pipeline monopoly Transneft, was tapped by Putin to head Olimpstroi on Sept. 11, a day before Putin appointed Zubkov prime minister in a shakeup of top government and state officials. After stepping down at Transneft, which he headed for eight years, Vainshtok was replaced by Putin ally Nikolai Tokarev, the head of state oil firm Zarubezhneft. Kozak on Thursday praised Kolodyazhny, 54, calling him "a highly professional manager." He added that Kolodyazhny "was not the only candidate" to replace Vainshtok but declined to name the others. On Thursday, Vladimir Afanasenkov, a former deputy governor of the Krasnodar region, replaced Kolodyazhny as Sochi mayor. Olimpstroi vice president Sergei Grigoryev, a lieutenant of Vainshtok's who followed him from Transneft, said Thursday that Kolodyazhny's appointment had been "quite unexpected." Grigoryev stoutly defended Vainshtok against his critics. "Less than a year has passed since we won the bid. It is obvious that we have neither the financial nor the strategic plan yet with exact figures and parameters," Grigoryev said.

Grigoryev, a former vice president at Transneft under Vainshtok, hinted that the team that came with Vainshtok from the pipeline monopoly last September might also leave Olimpstroi. "But don't expect any dramatic changes in the company," Grigoryev said. Public arguments among officials over the spiraling costs for the Olympics have increased in recent months, with Vainshtok telling State Duma deputies last month that the games would cost taxpayers three times the initial estimates. Building the transportation infrastructure alone could cost 316 billion rubles ($13.5 billion), Vainshtok said. The government initially earmarked 200 billion rubles ($8.5 billion) of state funds for Olympic construction, including the cost of design and construction of sports facilities, energy supply, communications and tourist attractions. "A lot was missing [in the estimates] and most of what was included was not confirmed by state experts," Vainshtok told deputies. "[The cost of] purchasing land was not even taken into account, and this alone would require an additional 82.4 billion rubles ($3.5 billion)."

The first serious hint of Vainshtok's position being under threat came earlier this month, when Victor Ilyukhin, a Communist Duma deputy, urged authorities in an open letter to fire Vainshtok and start an investigation into possible money laundering at Olimpstroi. Ilyukhin said the state's planned budget for Sochi, $11.9 billion, would dwarf the $6 billion combined total spent on the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Salt Lake City and Turin. Audit Chamber chief Stepashin warned a Cabinet meeting last month that the Sochi Games would end up costing taxpayers $24 billion. Ilyukhin said Thursday that the departure would offer only temporary relief. "Not much will change immediately, but all hopes are on [Kolodyazhny] to use his good local knowledge to put things right," Ilyukhin said. In his complaint, Ilyukhin attacked Olimpstroi's status as a state corporation, which he said meant that it was beyond the control of the Justice Ministry, State Registry, and tax and customs services. "This gives huge opportunities for money laundering," Ilyukhin said.

Ilyukhin put the blame for quickly rising land prices in Sochi on Vainshtok's shoulders, saying speculators had gained at the expense of the state. Chris Weafer, chief strategist at UralSib, said Vainshtok's departure had not come as a big surprise, as "a lot of changes across the government structure" were to be expected during the presidential handover period between Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev. Vainshtok's move to Olimpstroi in September had more to do with moving him out of Transneft, where he was blocking a deal between the state and the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, than with him being involved long-term with the Olympic preparations, Weafer said.

The Russian Russia blog Whims of Fate translates the following article from the Regions.ru Russian website in which a member of the Duma exposes Russia's being awarded the 2014 Olympics as an utter fraud:

The decision OF IOC about the victory of Sochi is made only out of corrupt motives, counts the Deputy Chairman of Committee of the State Duma for constitutional legislation and state building Andrey Savelyev.

"The city, into infrastructure of which they will pack enormous money, is absolutely not ready for any mass sport measures", stated deputy in interview REGIONS.RU/"Novosti for federation", commenting on the victory of Russian health resort in the competition to the right of conducting winter Olympiad -2014.

According to the parliamentarian, "Russian mass sport is completely destroyed. Therefore the victory of Sochi causes in me no feelings, except displeasure, besides corruption there's nothing else to expect".

The deputy chairman of committee considers that for the victory of Sochi in the competition to the right of conducting winter Olympiad -2014 "was prepared the act of international corruption of large scale. And differently this cannot be concluded in any other way ".

After reporting that he himself has been in Sochi, Andrey Savelyev emphasized: "in this city neither Olympiad nor other large-scale sport measure cannot be undertaken. Indeed in order to convert this city into the sports center, it is necessary to spend colossal amounts of money, which are necessary in our country for other purposes. Moreover the preparation for the Olympiad will damage of the ecology of surroundings, because of the building it is necessary to change the landscape, which at the given moment does not make it possible to conduct mass sporting events. Therefore this entire idea will cause great harm to both the city and to country".

Deputy is convinced that the arrival of Vladimir Putin into Guatemala in no way influenced the decision of members IOC. "The decision was accepted only due to corrupt motives, and there are no other motives. Since any specialist, who would take one glance at Sochi, immediately would understand that it is not possible to carry out the Olympics there ".

"The decisive argument for the victory -was the huge sums of money, which will be pocketed by members of IOC, and also Russian sport officials, who suffocated Russian sport, and, apparently, for a good reward", the deputy chairman of committee was convinced.

Andrey Savelyev described that he himself spent his entire life practicing martial arts, and now is occupied by karate.

Once again, a highly-ranked Russian lost to a lower-ranked non-Russian at an advanced level of a major tournament, Svetlana Kuznetsova going down to Serbian Anna Ivanovic at the French Open, getting blown off the court 1-6 in the decisive third set. Bad news for Maria Sharapova; now she'll have to play a non-Russian in the semis. As if that were not bad enough, The Moscow Times reports on more sports-related humilation for Russia:

A month before the IOC vote, the South Korean city of Pyeongchang received the best overall review Monday in a report assessing the three bids for the 2014 Winter Olympics. Pyeongchang, which finished second to Vancouver in the race for the 2010 Games, got the most favorable ratings in a technical report by the International Olympic Committee's evaluation commission. Sochi and Salzburg, Austria, are the other candidates.

The report could play an important role in swaying undecided members when the full IOC general assembly selects the 2014 host city by secret ballot on July 4 in Guatemala City. The 87-page report, based on visits to the three bid cities this winter by a panel of experts, assessed the candidates on a number of key issues, including sports venues, security, financing, accommodation, transportation as well as government and public support.

While the IOC did not rank the cities, the report identified strengths and weaknesses that could be used to differentiate them in overall terms. The report listed no significant weaknesses in the bid from Pyeongchang, which focuses on expanding winter sports in Asia and fostering peace on the Korean peninsula.

The IOC warned, however, that Sochi's major infrastructure plans would need to be "tightly monitored," and cited Salzburg for lacking detail in its bid documents, offering some hotel rooms below IOC standards and underestimating security costs.

Pyeongchang also came out on top -- and Salzburg last -- in the IOC's public opinion survey. The Korean city had 91 percent who support the bid, compared with 79 percent in Sochi and 42 percent in Salzburg.

The report termed the sports venue concepts of Salzburg and Pyeongchang as "excellent" and Sochi's as "very good."

Salzburg's bid is aided by the fact that much of the infrastructure is already in place. Sochi, which is seeking to bring the winter games to Russia for the first time, must build most of its venues from scratch. The IOC report said completing infrastructure projects linking the seacoast to the mountain venues "is critical to the games and would require robust construction methods. Construction would have to be tightly monitored in order to ensure timely delivery for the games, including test events," it said. LR: In other words, who in his right mind can possibly trust the Russians to deliver even on their third-rate plans?

Dmitry Chernyshenko, Sochi's bid chief, called the IOC report "objective," in an e-mailed statement, and acknowledged the need to take into account the IOC's assessment of the bid's shortcomings. "Ecology and transportation. We understand it is necessary to work these issues through and are sure they will be successfully addressed," he said.

Of course, it must be admitted that in all liklihood the Russians don't actually want the games. In fact, Putin probably wants to be rejected just so he can blame evil foreigners. The last thing in the world he would want is to have his dictatorship under a microscope and thousands of creepy democracy-loving foreigners crawling all over his favorite retreat.

Everyting old is new again. And we do mean everything.

By an extremely narrow margin, the International Olympic Committee has voted to hold the 2014 Olympic games in the Russian city of Sochi. It's a brilliant decision, for many reasons.

First of all, Sochi is famous for warm, sandy beaches and palm trees, which will come in quite handy in hosting the winter olympiad. After all, if a country is going to hold an olympics, why not hold it in the most southern locality possible! Miami Florida in 2028!

Second, the games will take place right in the back yard of the Chechen terrorists, literally walking distance from their strongholds in the mountains, becoming an irresistible target for violence and bloodshed such as the world has never before seen at an olympics. Though the Kremlin won't be able to stop this violence (heaven only knows how many Beslans and Dubrovkas will occur), it will of course conveniently justify yet another massive round of crackdowns on Russia's already oppressed population.

Meanwhile, the IOC is helping Russia to cover up it's gross pattern of human rights abuses in the region, condemned by every human rights organization under the sun including, on many occasions, in official rulings of the European Court for Human Rights (the most recent example of which appears in another of today's posts, below).


At the same time, Russia will invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Sochi, already a playground for Russia's rich and famous that doesn't need investment, whilst the rest of the country continues to languish in extreme poverty . . .


. . . and Russia's crude, barbaric xenophobia will have a chance to consume dozens of dark-skinned athletes and fans from around the world if they are foolish enough to step outside their heavily guarded hotel rooms.

All that is to say nothing, of course, about the possiblity that Russia simply won't be able to meet its basic obligations to build a suitable facility due to corruption and general incompetence, features of Russian life with which every Russian visitor is well acquainted, leaving Russia humiliated as having hosted (or even failed to host) the worst olympics in history. What if the price of oil drops? What if Vladimir Putin has a heart attack? The number of ways this could go horribly wrong for Russia are uncountable.

And it's to say nothing of the possibility of a shooting war breaking out between Russia and any one of a number of its neighbors, as the piece below from the Wall Street Journal on the Kodori attack on Georgia makes clear.

Neither Austria nor Korea, Russia's two rivals for the 2014 games, have been convicted of human rights violations in the ECHR, neither is fighting an ongoing war of imperialism with a breakway province, and both are far more economically advanced and progressive than Russia. Just as Russia doesn't belong by any objective measure on the G-8 but sits there anyway, it simply isn't qualified to host an olympics. The fact that Russia maintains these possibilities despite obvious reality is conclusive proof of the need for this blog.


As many will already know, this isn't the first time something totally insane like this has happened. For instance, the USSR hosted the 1980 summer olympics (America boycotted them) and Nazi Germany hosted the games in 1936. In less than ten years thereafter, Nazi Germany ceased to exist. Will we be as lucky where Putin's KGB Russia is concerned?

When Russian athletes win medals at Sochi (if they find any snow and ice), the music of the national anthem of the USSR will play to honor them. Perhaps by then Russia will even have revived the Soviet flag to fly above them. So we'll get to see Russia in its full neo-Soviet glory, just the way we saw Nazi Germany.

All this presents us with a great opportunity. Indeed, it's hard to imagine that the Putin administration actually even wanted the games to occur on Russian soil, although it's possible that it is so drunk on power that it actually does. How much better would it have been if the games were denied, so the Kremlin could have claimed proof of Western hatred of Russia. That's going to be a much harder argument to make now, when for instance Russia tries to block defensive missiles in Europe. Then on top of that, in 2014 the world's journalists will swarm over Russia, dredging up every bit of horror from the Katyn massacre to the murder of Anna Politkovskaya. Every human rights and opposition political group under the sun will have an instant international platform to criticize Russia, and institutions like La Russophobe will have a field day. Right now, most of the time, the world just gives a giant collective Y-A-W-N when it hears about Russia, but in 2014 at least for a few weeks the world will be forced to train its cameras on Russia and see it for what it is. It won't like the picture, not one little bit. Quite possibly, dictator Putin will have returned to power in 2012 with a new seven-year term, expecting to rule the country until at least 2026.
Less than 10 years after the USSR hosted the summer games, it ceased to exist. Perhaps that is a wonderful harbinger for Putin's Russia as well. So bring on the Sochi games of 2014! The opportunity to galvanize a boycott movement alone will be worth its wait in gold. La Russophobe congratulates the IOC on its brilliant decision!

Hey Dmitry Chernyshenk, leader of Russia's bid to make Sochi the home of the 2014 Winter Olympics, what's the best reason you can think of for Sochi to be selected?

"It's one of the safest cities in Russia and all of the world," he said in an interview on the sidelines of the World Forum of Sport. "Not only because it's the summer residence of our president, but because it's also the home of the training center for all our emergency services. "It's a very special place that has recently hosted more than 27 international events. "The whole of Russia is behind this bid, including President Putin. He's the best promoter of our bid because he spends one-third of his time there. It's like Russia's second capital."

So let me see if I've got that straight. Nothing about mountains or snow or anything, and I mean you're not saying any of those 27 events were in skiiing or anything (for all we know it was body surfing), in fact Sochi is famous among Russians as a beach resort, and anyway the word "international" to Russians usually means Russia, Armenia and Belarus, but you think the world should flock there because it has lots of KGB agents and "President" Putin, who is slaying Russian democracy as if it were a dragon and he were St. Georgi, loves it. Uh, OK.

Now, about this safety thing, any truth to the rumor that Russia has the fifth-highest murder rate on the planet while true international tourism is virtually non-existent and airplanes are dropping out of the sky at an alarming rate?

No comment.

OK. Is it at all possible that Chechen terrorists, just a stone's throw away in Ingushetia, would take the Olympics as a red flag for a massive assault that would make the Munich games look like a walk in the park?

No comment.

Are you even remotely serious about hosting the games, or is this just a cheap publicity stunt like they used to run in the USSR, for domestic consumption only?

No comment.

Is it true that in the last week "President" Putin launched slurs against Italians and Spaniards and joked jovially about rape? Do you think that will endear Russia to the hearts and minds of Olympics voters?

"You're under arrest."

Let's say, just for the sake of argument, that Russia was awarded the games and some of the visiting athletes tried to carry naked photos of "President" Putin out of the country. What would you do to them?

"Didn't you hear me, I said you're under arrest."

Well, what if they joined forces to commemorate Anna Politkovskaya or express solidarity with oppressed Georgians?

*Sound of a gun being loaded*

It's just too bad for Russia that murder is not an Olympic sport. Were it, Russia would surely dominate the globe. Indeed, Russia has once again outdone itself in spectacle of barbarism. It has chosen to celebrate its victory over Nazi Germany by freeing an attempted murderer/assassin and then sending him to the Olympic games. If you didn't know this was true, you'd swear it was a joke. The Moscow Times reports:

Four-time Olympic biathlon champion Alexander Tikhonov [pictured center] was convicted Monday of plotting to poison Kemerovo Governor Aman Tuleyev, but his three-year prison sentence was commuted as part of a 2005 amnesty. The Novosibirsk Regional Court convicted Tikhonov, who won team gold for the Soviet Union in four straight Winter Olympics from 1968 to 1980, of hiring two men to poison Tuleyev in early 2000. The two men subsequently told authorities about the plot, prosecutors said. Tikhonov, 60, was released in the courtroom Monday under a 2005 amnesty in connection with the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, Interfax reported.

He said his first order of business would be to prepare for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Interfax reported. Tikhonov, who has maintained that he is innocent, is president of the Russian Biathlon Union. Sochi was also a prominent theme in Tikhonov's final statement to the court Monday, Gazeta.ru reported.

"For us it's not so much an economic plus as it is a moral and psychological factor," Tikhonov said of Sochi's selection to host the games, Gazeta.ru said. "No one knows, and I will tell you: The Koreans spent more than $300 million for their selection campaign."
Sochi beat Pyeongchang, South Korea, by just four votes, 51-47 at the International Olympic Committee's selection in Guatemala earlier this month.

Tikhonov's brother, Viktor, was convicted in 2002 of conspiring in the purported plot and sentenced to four years in prison.

Prosecutors said metals magnate Mikhail Zhivilo ordered the Tikhonov brothers to kill Tuleyev in early 2000 because his factories had been taken over by Tuleyev's administration for alleged financial wrongdoing. The Tikhonov brothers were arrested in August 2000. Alexander Tikhonov was released a month later for health reasons and went to Austria for treatment. Russian authorities lost track of him after he checked out of a clinic there. In December 2001, Russia asked Interpol to help find him. He returned to Russia last year to face charges.

Viktor Tikhonov was released from prison in August 2004.

Zhivilo left for France before the brothers were detained by the FSB. He was arrested there at Russia's request in 2001, but a French court refused to extradite him and ordered his release. He has reportedly since received political asylum in France.

The Moscow Times reports:

SOCHI, Southern Russia -- President Vladimir Putin and European Union leaders failed to secure an agreement on energy policy at a meeting in Sochi on Thursday in the run-up to the G8's summit in St. Petersburg.

Putin accused European leaders of double standards, maintaining that the EU complained about Gazprom's gas-export monopoly but blocked Russian efforts to tap European energy markets.

The Sochi meeting came at the same time that Russian-U.S. relations have also been strained, with the White House upset with Russia's energy policy, position on Iran's uranium-enrichment program and human-rights record.

"If our European partners expect that we will let them into the holy of holies of our economy -- the energy sector -- and let them in as they would like to be admitted, then we expect reciprocal steps in the most crucial and important areas for our development," the president said.

Putin sounded an optimistic note, too. "The most important thing is that we have a desire to agree on this issue, and we will reach an agreement."

And, for the first time, Putin responded directly to U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that Russia is backtracking on democracy, saying Russia was simply pursuing its national interests.

The Financial Express of India (see similar on RIA Novosti) exposes Russia as a third-rate nation utterly unfit to hold membership in the G-8 or host the Olympic Games. Of course, lack of substance has never stopped Russia before, which has always preferred instead to rely on lies and illusions.

President Putin has frequently complained that international reporting on Russia is biased and unfair, that the media focus is on the bad news rather than on positive developments. There is certainly some truth in this—western reporting on the Soviet Union and on Yeltsin and Putin’s Russia has varied between brilliant and insightful and downright incompetent. And as new reports by the World Bank and the Swedish Defence Research Agency make clear, it is hard to put a good spin on bad policies.

This week, Russia started getting down to the serious business of organising the 2014 Winter Olympics after Sochi’s successful bid to host the Games. President Putin’s injunctions to the prime minister, ministers, government officials and the Prosecutor General were symptomatic of Russia’s current stage of development.

Putin told officials recently to set up a special working group at the prosecutor general’s office to ensure that the billions of dollars the state will spend on building the necessary sport facilities and transport infrastructure will be used rationally and as intended.

He also told ministers and Yuri Chaika, the prosecutor general, that the working group should prevent the money from being siphoned off and embezzled and should include people from other law enforcement agencies to beef up monitoring. The Russian media highlighted Putin’s call for the working group, but Dmitry Chernyshenko, the head of the Sochi bidding committee, argued that the fears of fraud were exaggerated and rightly pointed out that in the last 15 years, Russia has made great progress in democracy, openness and transparency.

But it is hard to imagine that a western head of state would feel the need to set up an audit body with such a specific brief: the legal regimes and control mechanisms in developed countries are by no means perfect and cannot prevent corruption, but they are far superior to similar institutions in Russia.

Putin’s orders reflect his recognition of rampant corruption, but Transparency International claims that since 2001, graft in Russia has in fact jumped sevenfold. This week, the World Bank Institute published its sixth annual Worldwide Governance Indicators. The bank summarises six aggregate indicators to arrive at an assessment of how well countries are governed: voice & accountability; political stability and lack of violence/terrorism; government effectiveness; regulatory quality; rule of law and control of corruption.

Needless to say, the G7 and the OECD continue to boast the high values which indicate better governance—in other words, these are the advanced first-world countries, or those aspiring to become developed.

But no matter how you slice and dice the data, Russia almost invariably appears far below the advanced countries and falls in the ranks of the lower percentiles, which indicate the percentage of countries worldwide that rate below the selected country. Even more worrying to Moscow ought to be Russia’s poor performance in the much-vaunted BRIC group, with Russia often far behind Brazil and India, although China more often brings up the rear with a big lag. Indeed, Russia does not even perform particularly well among the group of countries from the former Soviet Union. Russia is still a long way off achieving anywhere near the levels of the developed West and Japan—and also of OECD members such as Mexico.

The Swedish Defence Research Agency published a report recently sponsored by the Swedish Ministry of Defence and entitled, “Russian Leverage on the CIS and Baltic States.” The study analyses Russia’s use of foreign policy levers, such as energy and culture, and concludes that Russia’s actions during the “oil and gas wars” and the recent crisis with Estonia have caused a backlash and go against Russia’s stated aim of joining the WTO and better relations with Europe and EU.

We unfortunately have to admit that at this point, in a city of half a million people, there is no proper sewage system, electricity supply or infrastructure.

What nasty, narrow-minded Russophobe could have possibly made that statement, do you imagine, referring to the beautiful cosmopolitan city of Sochi, proposed home of the 2014 Winter Olympics?

Obviously, it can't be true -- or else how could the International Olympic Committee possibly have awarded Russia the games? But who in the world could be so crazed as to issue such a nasty smear against lovely, charming Sochi?

Why, lo and behold! Shock and dismay! It was Russian "president" Vladimir Putin himself, as reported in the Moscow Times.

Hmmm . . . wonder if Putin let the IOC have that little tidbit of information before they decided to award the games, or after . . .

Oh well, after all they are Olympic athletes. Surely they can just keep their legs crossed for two weeks whilst in country, right?

One might have thought that the most serious threat to life and limb at the proposed 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi would have been the multitude of nearby Chechen terrorists. Not necessarily so! Russian ski lifts may prove far more lethal, as the Moscow News reports:

An avalanche swept into a chairlift Sunday at a ski resort that is part of Russia’s bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics, killing a 10-year-old child and trapping at least three other people, The Associated Press news agency reports quoting Russian Emergencies Ministry. The avalanche took place at Krasnaya Polyana, one of Russia’s best-known ski centers. Sergei Petrov, a spokesman for the emergency ministry’s southern district, said the avalanche swept the four people off a chairlift. About 60 other people were on the lift at the time. Krasnaya Polyana, in the Caucasus Mountains about 30 miles east of the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, is visited annually by Russian President Vladimir Putin for a skiing holiday.

And if the ski lifts and terrorists don't get you, the orange snow may well do.

Things are going badly in the Caucasus. The news from just one day, last Tuesday, should be more than enough to make a hard man humble -- though perhaps not a hard psychopath like Vladimir Putin.

Yulia Latynina wrote in the Moscow Times about insurrection in Ingushtia. She tells the story of Maksharip Aushev, who was arrested by the Putin's secret police after he protested and investigated the arrest and torture of his nephew and son in the village of Narzan. She tell us:

Agents allegedly broke the young men's ribs, and drove them into the mountains to witness what is called 'Snickers' in certain circles. This is where police tie explosives to a corpse and detonate it, blowing the body into little pieces, which are then eaten by wild animals so that the victim's identity will never be established. This torture had no practical value in gaining evidence; the henchmen were just having fun. But their sadism backfired when people in Nazran took to the streets demanding the release of the pair. As a result of this public outcry, the cousins were released.

The secret police then burned down Aushev's brother's home and locked him up. Latynina observes: "People like Aushev are Russia's last hope. He conducted himself like a brave warrior. He did not adopt the terrorists' methods but fought his battle within the boundaries of the law. I don't think Putin likes these kinds of fighters."

Then the Associated Press told us that "Audit Chamber Chairman Sergei Stepashin on Tuesday warned that costs for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi are spiraling to double the amount planned." This puts the costs at more than $25 billion or nearly $200 for every man, woman and child in Russia - a full week's average wages for each. The AP states: "Sochi was one of the Soviet Union's most popular vacation spots, but development has not kept pace with Russia's general post-Soviet economic boom. Its lack of facilities and substandard infrastructure was seen as one of the bid's potential weak points, but strong government support proved persuasive to International Olympic Committee members." So, naturally, that was the spot Putin chose to host the Olympics.

These two events are horrifying enough on their own. Now, put them together. It's easy, because Ingushetia is right next door to Sochi and Chechnya. 2 + 2 = 0. Zero hope that the powder keg Putin has created in the Caucuses will not explode right about the time the games commence, that is if they manage to commence at all, sending the true cost of these "games" into the region of the imponderable, the inconceivable.

Think the Kremlin can't make this unimaginably bad situation even worse? Think again.

Turn back to the Moscow Times, and reporter David Nowak tells us that "an Uzbek man has been stabbed to death in southwestern Moscow, the fourth fatal attack on dark-skinned people in the city in the past five days." Nowak states: "A total of 67 people were killed and more than 550 injured nationwide in hate crimes last year, according to Sova Center statistics." And Russia is on pace to double that number of killings this year, with 23 in just the first six weeks of 2008. Nowak quotes Soyun Sadykov, who heads Azerross, a group representing Azeri citizens living in Russia: "We have these poor people coming to Russia in search of a better life -- to work, and to provide for their families. Instead of thanking them for providing the labor force in sectors that Muscovites wouldn't dream of occupying, we are cutting them up, stabbing them to death."

In other words, white Slavic Orthodox Russia is not only torturing and murdering in the Caucuses, but everywhere across the country, perhaps most especially in the nation's capital, where Vladimir Putin himself resides, building resentment among all the nation's dark-skinned peoples, practically inviting them to strike back. Meanwhile, it throws up in their faces a grandiose Olympic scheme, as if to say: "See what we prefer to do with our money, rather than to make a better life for you."

A famous French king, when asked why he chose to rule in such a profligate and self-destructive manner, answered: "Apres moi, le deluge." Putin is rumored to have squirreled away billions of ill-gotten dollars and to be in the process of erecting secret vacation homes in various corners of Europe. He's found a bird-brained sycophant to "succeed" him, which really means "take the blame, like the sap you are."

Speaking about the Kremlin's attack on the British Council, that successor (Dmitri Medvedev) said: "Try as I might, I cannot recall a single episode when the British government permitted Russian non- governmental organization to operate in Great Britain. I dare you try and register a Russian non-governmental organization in London." So it seems that the reason du jour for attacking the BC is to force Britain to accept Russian cultural institutions (never mind that most people in the world lack the slightest interest in Russia culture and would ignore such institutions, especially if they were run by clueless Russians, and never mind that the Kremlin never raised a single word of protest about such an issue before launching the attack). But yesterday, the reason was that the BC was violating Russian law. The day before that, it was a nest of spies. And the day before that, it was a sacrificial symbol of Russian outrage over Britain daring to investigate the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.

Mr. Medvedev simply can't make up his mind, such as there is. Quite literally, he wants to have his cake and eat it too, just like his Soviet predecessors. And while he's consumed with winning the great battle against the British Council, he's not even aware of the apocalypse his government is creating in the Caucuses.

Great Russian patriot that Mr. Medvedev is, he loves Russia just the way Stalin did.

He loves it to death.

RIA Novosti reports that Russia intends to spend $7 billion refurbishing the seaside summer resort town of Sochi if it wins the 2014 Winter Olympics. No doubt, snow-making machines will be high on the list. Apparently, despite losing 1 million people per year and salaries of $300 per month, Vladimir Putin can think of nothing better to do with Russia's money than try to buy the Olympic games.

La Russophobe dares to wonder whether this might not simply be smokescreen to allow Putin and his cronies to pump money into their new pleasure palace in Sochi, a la the Politburo, under the guise of preparing to host the games.

Yes, that's right, you heard correctly. It seems getting Maria Sharapova, who doesn't even live in Russia and whose athletic skills are ruining the sport of tennis, to sponsor its last Olympic bid was not nearly enough stupidity to satisfy benighted Russians. Now, Snow-covered Russia wants to get the 2014 Winter Olympic games and it want to put them (no, you're not on Candid Camera) in its Black Seaside beach resort town of Sochi, you know, the one with all the hotness and bathing suits and palm trees and so forth.

As the Moscow News reports:

The Russian government officially threw its support behind the 2014 Winter Olympic bid by the southern resort of Sochi, The Associated Press reported. In an announcement posted on its web-site Thursday, the government said it had adopted a program on developing the resort by 2014, including a 327 billion ruble (12 billion USD) investment to be shared 60-40 between the government and private sector.“With this federal target program in place, the International Olympic Committee has a full guarantee that all the facilities and venues necessary for hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games will be fully completed in time,” the site quoted Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov as saying.“If Russia has the honor of hosting the ... Games, the Games will be held in state-of-the-art facilities and leave a priceless legacy for the Olympic Movement as well as Russia.” The plan includes construction of a new terminal at the airport serving Sochi, 25,000 new hotel rooms and road renovations as well as 16 sport facilities.The International Olympic Committee meets June 21-23 in Lausanne, Switzerland, to decide which cities make the final cut in the competition for who will host the Games

It was only a matter of time. Gazeta.ru has reports on the Kremlinization of the legal profession (Robert Amsterdam has been documenting the crude manner in which the Kremlin has sought to crush the Khodorkhovsky legal team, and apparently now the circle is widening). The translation comes through Xignite.

Sergey Stepashin, the chairman of the Russian Jurists Association, intends to carry out a purge of the ranks. The businessman Dmitriy Shumkov, the secretary of the commission for legal culture and promoting law, has become the first candidate for departure. He is accused of using the association as a headquarters for presidential candidate Dmitriy Medvedev.

The Russian Jurists Association [AYuR] back in the autumn of last year declared itself a community, which will, possibly, support First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev in the elections in 2008. Gazeta.Ru wrote that the founding conference of the AYuR in its current incarnation took place on 15 November and sources in the association's leadership back then told Gazeta.Ru that it might become a prototype electoral headquarters for "the successor" Medvedev. At the same time the AYuR, whose head at the time was Oleg Kutafin - who twice initiated Vladimir Putin's nomination as president - announced plans to open a network of organizations in the Russian regions offering legal assistance to the population. This, the experts noted, would enable almost the entire territory of Russia to be enveloped by Medvedev's "emissaries" under election conditions. By the end of January this year, the AYuR had already manifestly taken Medvedev's side. The "successor" visited a session of the AYuR presidium, where he declared that a special legal television channel for citizens would be set up - Pravo-TV - which was also regarded as an addition to "the successor's" media assets.

However, on Monday [19 February] a flaw appeared in the harmonious picture of relations between the AYuR and Dmitriy Medvedev. Sergey Stepashin, the current chairman of the AYuR (elected in January 2007) as well as the head of the Comptroller's Office, suggested carrying out a purge of the AYuR ranks. Anyone seen using the association's resources for political or commercial purposes should be stripped of their membership. The first candidate for departure is businessman and professor of the Civil Service Academy Dmitriy Shumkov, who is close to Medvedev.

"We have decided to clean out our ranks. We have, in particular, a certain Dmitriy Shumkov who declares everywhere that he is creating an election headquarters for Dmitriy Medvedev - some public receptions. And he has now even got as far as Sochi, has engaged in Olympic matters," Stepashin stated on Monday. "In short, we must look very seriously at who is in association with us today."

Stepashin added that a re-organization of the ranks was already in full swing: "We have decided to strengthen the association's board, Pavel Krasheninnikov has been elected its chairman, he heads one of the most complicated committees in the State Duma, on legislation. A program has been adopted, which we have approved at the presidium, so a great deal of very serious work lies ahead."

From today's statement by Stepashin, it follows that he has little idea of which Shumkov he is talking about, otherwise he would not call him a "certain" head of the AYuR. Dmitriy Shumkov occupied quite a prominent position in the reform of the AYuR. Thus, at the same presidium sitting in January at which Stepashin was elected head of the association, an AYuR commission for legal culture and promoting law was founded and its members included Deputy Prosecutor-Generals Aleksandr Bastrykin, Aleksandr Zvyagintsev, Yevgeniy Zabarchuk, FSB [Federal Security Service] Deputy Director Yuriy Gorbunov, Deputy Interior Minister Oleg Safonov, Senator Lyudmila Narusova, Deputy Aleksandr Khinshteyn and others. Shumkov became executive secretary of the commission and was responsible in the first instance for the creation of the legal centers. Moreover, as Krasheninnikov said in an interview to the Kommersant newspaper after the January session, Medvedev even praised Shumkov for his work in developing the network of 24,000 free legal consultation offices.

However, even last week Stepashin had started to hint that he did not like some politicized figures in the association. The head of the Comptroller's Office started to speak for the first time about unscrupulous members of the AYuR, admittedly without mentioning names, at the conference "Notaries, State Power and Civil Society" which took place in Moscow on 15-16 February. Talking about the legal centers project, Stepashin stated: "I would like to take advantage of the situation to say that, unfortunately, someone in our ranks has tried to use this aspect of our work. Legal Ostap Benders [REFERENCE to the hero of the Russian novel Dvenadtsat Stulyev] have appeared who have nothing to do with the Jurists Association. They are trying to present such centers as the headquarters for one of the candidates for the post of president, although there are not yet any candidates."

We were unable to get any comment on Stepashin's speech in the AYuR. Deputy Aleksandr Khinshteyn, a member of the commission for legal culture and promoting law, for the moment refuses to given any comments on the "purge" of the association's ranks. Shumkov himself is not accessible for comments either.

In the opinion of Aleksey Mukhin, the director of the Center for Political Information, the entire situation looks like a "misunderstanding". "It looks like a provocation both on the part of Shumkov and on the part of Stepashin," he explained to Gazeta.Ru. The expert does not rule out that Shumkov could have been misunderstood. In actual fact, this is quite possible since there are no clear assertions by AYuR officials in the press that the network of legal centers being created are Medvedev's campaign headquarters.

If you take into account the fact that the topic of lawyers as part of the political battle is not being raised for the first time, it cannot be ruled out that the chairman of the association has himself decided to start a political battle. "This may mean that Stepashin has joined in the political battle on the side of another successor candidate," Mukhin thinks. Taking into account the fact that Sergey Ivanov, the new first deputy prime mister, is now another identifiable candidate, the head of the AYuR is coming out on his side. Nevertheless, the expert thinks that we need to wait for new explanations from the association.

Dmitriy Shumkov is a professor at the Civil Service Academy and is considered a member of Medvedev's entourage. Moreover, he heads a legal company, "Shumkov and Partners", the Pravokom group of companies and the Allure Foundation. It was as head of the foundation that Shumkov acted as partner of the bid committee for the holding of the Olympics in Sochi in 2014. Reports appeared last week that the Allure Foundation had acquired 50 percent of the shares in the French company Lacroix Luxe Sport, which produces skis. The owners of the company intended to invest around 300 million dollars in Sochi, together with representatives of the Russian state structures. However, on Sunday Skis Lacroix denied the reports in the Russian media about the sale of a share holding to the Russian entrepreneur.