Putin on the ritz

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his friends in the Kremlin are unperturbed by their attention-grabbing expenditures in their most lavish pet project yet.

The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi will reportedly cost $50 billion after all is said and done. This sum would make these Games the most expensive in history, exceeding the $44 billion for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and more than four times the original budget of $12 billion.

But far from the smooth and jaw-droppingly spectacular rollout of Beijing, journalists and athletes arriving in Sochi last week were treated to a rash of problems and a torrent of embarrassing pictures flowing out through Twitter via “#sochiproblems.”

The Editorial Board believes when all factors are considered, we are within our rights to look at what happened in Sochi and ask both Russia and the International Olympic Committee what went wrong.

The Twitter pictures have no doubt resulted in many chuckles, and journalists who have endured long flights want to have a hot shower and a warm bed. But when they are being confronted with dirty water or no shower curtains, they have the right to complain.

Call it first world problems or not, this is a simple construction failure, especially when these are supposed to be expensive, state-of-the-art hotels.But if preparing for the largest event in the world and massive overspending cannot clean up a rather sleepy costal town, then the lead-up to the Games has been an unmitigated disaster.

In an article in the Wall Street Journal, Jean-Claude Killy, who is the head of the coordination committee of the IOC, said the developers of the hotels and sporting venues had concentrated first on the arenas, but were lagging on the hotels. 

The hotel situation is not the only concern. High costs have plagued the construction of not only the Olympic venues, but the creation of the infrastructure itself. There are stories of the $9.4 billion road and rail link as well as the $228 million ski jump.

Additional security concerns also might have played a role in inflating the budget.

Putin’s larger hopes that Sochi will one day become a ski destination rivaling that of Aspen or Chamonix should be tempered when journalists give this seaside town all of their coverage instead of focusing on the unusual stains on the bed.

No Olympiad is ever problem-free and even one as cheap as London had its concerns that later proved to be unfounded. But when a country hails it’s playing host to the Winter Olympics with such pomp and fanfare and claims that “Sochi is going to become a new world-class resort for the new Russia,” the press should not shy away from speaking its mind.

Even if the problems are indeed of the first-world variety.

­— opinion@idsnews.com
Follow the Editorial Board on Twitter @ IDS_Opinion.