The Other Sochi
"Everyone was looking forward to the Olympics. We just never thought they would leave us bang in the middle of a federal highway!"
Alexandra Krivchenko, resident of Akatsy street
"It's a parallel universe that locals to a great extent have no access to. It has very little to do with how Sochi lives every day So far, city streets are all dug up, residents have a lot of problems and it's hard to see a happy ending after all of this construction."
Olga Beskova, editor, Sochinskiye Novosti website (Sochi News)
That $634-million highway just outside Sochi right next to a crumbling apartment block with a red "SOS!" banner on its roof assaults the sensibilities of residents of 5a Akatsy street who have lived for years without running water or sewage systems. Their lives have not improved in quality with the construction for the 2014 Winter Games. The highway in particular has cut them away from the city centre. Their communal outhouse was torn down as an eyesore, too close to the new road.
This is definitely not the gleaming Sochi prepared to welcome the world by genial host Russian President Vladimir Putin, eager to show his international guests just how modern and technically acute Russia is, on this lovely tourist-attracting site on the Black Sea. Somehow the fact that a slum sits adjacent the expensive new highway was overlooked. State TV boasts luxury malls, exciting new stadiums and high-speed train links.
In Sochi thousands of people live in squalor and environmental waste with villagers living next to an illegal dump full of Olympic construction waste. And families concerned that their homes are sinking into the earth, while city dwellers suffer ongoing power cuts. Mr. Putin boasted that the Sochi Games would bring investment to this resort city, improving living conditions for its 350,000 residents. Most people have yet to see improvement of any kind in their lives.
In the village of Akhshtyr there are complaints about an illegal landfill used by an Olympics contractor. Their air has been fouled by its presence. A stream feeding the Sochi water supply has also been fouled. Waste from another illegal dump in the village of Loo has slid into a brook flowing into the Black Sea, adding to its pollution.
Just outside the Olympic Park, rumbling trucks have damaged house foundations in the village of Mirny, causing homes to sink. Across the rail tracks from the Akatsy building, a multi-family residence keeps flooding since another Olympics road was built nearby. Sochi residents are anything but thrilled at the destruction of forests and contamination of a river running down to the sea. A sandy beach popular with residents was paved over.
Sochi's mayor is utterly thrilled with all the changes. The gleaming ski resorts are amazing, he boutiques full of international brands, the new shopping malls with a Louis Vuitton store, are all symbolic, he exults, of positive change. Two huge power stations were commissioned for the provision of electricity for the Olympic venues, but power shortages across the city continue.
Thousands of people whose homes were demolished in favour of Olympic construction have been relocated, others remain waiting for new homes. Sochi's slum dwellings appear there to say; Sochi city government issued a written edict that over 100 apartment buildings and private homes have been classified as uninhabitable. But though the people on Akatsy street have petitioned for decades for that uninhabitable classification so new housing could be provided, they've been unsuccessful.
Therefore, the red "SOS!" sign over top of a crumbling building sitting about three kilometres from the Olympic Park. The property is not connected to city water or sewage systems. Residents drill wells and build outhouses. Welcome to Sochi.
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In this photo taken on November 27, 2013, a new highway is seen on the fringes of the Olympic park in Sochi. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
Labels: Human Relations, Olympic Games, Russia, Social Failures
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, January 28, 2014
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