KRASNAYA POLYANA, January 04, 15:54 /ITAR-TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin, accompanied by Russian Railways company head Vladimir Yakunin, has inspected the Olympic Park railway station.
The president inspected Olympic sport and infrastructure facilities in Sochi on Saturday. He took a train from the mountains, where hotel complexes are built, to the coastal area, where most of the Olympic sites are located.
Putin got into a Lastochka electric train at the Krasnaya Polyana station to travel to Olympic Park. Last year, the president already traveled in a Lastochka train. This Saturday, it is his final inspection of the railroad before the Winter Olympic Games, due to open on February 7.
Yakunin told the president that the railway station already received many passengers. More than 9,000 fans arrived at Olympic Park for the hockey championship (the Cup of TV Channel One) that took place there recently.
The Railways head told reporters the company was in charge of seven construction sites. The most complex of them was the joint line of the highway and the railroad to Krasnaya Polyana. The cost of the roads is 240 billion roubles. The work is completed in full, he said, noting the construction was completed in record short time.
The other facilities are also finished, Yakunin said.
The company also participated in the Olympic Park landscaping work and the construction of hostels for volunteers.
The most difficult stage of the preparation is over. There is something left to be finished, but on the whole, everything is ready, he said.
The Russian Railways head particularly noted that the facilities and the roads would serve not only during the Games, but for many years afterwards for local residents and guests.
The railway link between Sochi, Adler and residential sites in the mountains was opened in November last year after the Adler-Alpika-Servis highway and railroad construction was completed.
A trip by rail from Krasnaya Polyana to Olympic Park takes 45 minutes. The fare is 70 roubles. A trip from Sochi's central railway station takes a little more than an hour and costs 112 roubles.
Olympic Park, one of the six railway stations of Sochi, is the main gate to most sites of the Games. The station is expected to become a large junction located not far from Adler-Sochi airport, bus stations and passenger ships -- a pier is planned to be built nearby.