“Yes” to Sochi

On July 4, 2007 the International Olympic Committee met in session in Guatemala to make a decision to hold the 22nd Winter Olympic Games on February 7 through 23 and the 11 Winter Paralympic Games on March 7-16 in the city of Sochi. The next day Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree titled On Preparations for holding the Games in Sochi. On December 29, 2007 the Russian government adopted a resolution On the Program for Building Olympic Facilities and the Development of the City of Sochi as a Mountain Climate Resort. The mission of organizing sports facilities and servicing the Games was placed on the Organizing Committee Sochi 2014.

 

Huge effort

Taking part in the organization of the Games were over 30 federal ministries and agencies. All facilities were built on the basis of public-private partnership. All in all 84 organizations, including 53 private companies, took part in the program.

A total of 1,549.5 billion rubles ($44.5 billion) was spent on preparations for the Games, including 66% raised from extra-budgetary sources. The construction of Olympic facilities and related infrastructures required 214.6 billion rubles, and that of facilities crucial to the development of Sochi as a mountain climate health resort, 1,334.9 billion rubles.

Construction work was carried out at 363 facilities, including 13 sports facilities proper. All sports facilities are grouped into two clusters: the coastal cluster in the Imereti lowlands, and the mountain cluster Krasnaya Polyana at the Krasnaya Polyana facility.

 

The two clusters

The coastal cluster consists of the stadium Fisht seating 40,000, and smaller and greater ice hockey stadiums – Shayba and the Bolshoy Ice Dome, seating 7,000 and 12,000 respectively, the winter sports palace Iceberg with a capacity of 12,000, the Ice Cube curling stadium for 3,000 spectators and in-door skating rink Adler Arena for 8,000 spectators. Also, there are two newly-built training skating rinks – one for figure skating and short track, and the other for ice hockey. The main Olympic village taking up an area of 76 hectares for 3,000 guests and the main media centre with an area of 20 hectares were built within a walking distance.

The mountain cluster incorporates the newly-built luge and bobsleigh track (Sanki luge center), a set of two ski jumping ramps К-125 and К-95 (Russki Gorki), the snowboarding park and freestyle center Extreme Park Rosa Khutor seating 8,000 accommodating. The Alpine skiing centre Rosa Khutor for 10,000 spectators and the biathlon and skiing complex Laura for 9,600 are fully operational. On the Rosa Khutor plateau Russia built a mountain Olympic village taking up an area of 30 hectares for 2,600 athletes and guests, an extra accommodation facility for 1,100 athletes and guests on the Psekhako mountain ridge and an Alpine media center taking up an area of more than 30,000 square meters.

 

Infrastructure

For the 2014 Winter Olympics more than 150 kilometers of Alpine skiing courses were created. There were built 360 kilometers of roads, 102 bridges and 200 kilometers of rail track, 22 tunnels, more than 30 double-tier flyovers and 54 transport facilities. A combined automobile and rail road was laid from Adler to the mountain climate resort Alpika Service; it incorporates 48 kilometers of electrified rail line with three stations, and a 50-kilometer highway, 28 bridges, 59 overpasses, and 12 tunnels. The list of newly-built facilities includes a railway station in Adler and two stations – Olympic Park and Krasnaya Polyana. The upgrade effort increased the throughput of Sochi’s international airport from two million passengers to 3 million passengers a year. Eight boarding piers have been built or upgraded and the Imereti cargo port commissioned. After the Olympics it will be used as a yacht marina. Nearly two-thirds of all government investments into preparations for the Sochi Olympics was spent on the development of transport infrastructures.

Under the Olympic construction program the capacity of the existing thermoelectric power plants in Sochi and Tuapse was increased, a new power plant built in Adler and a standby one in Dzhubga; 900 kilometers of cable lines were laid and 460 transformer substations built. A total of 66 power supply facilities were created to increase the capacity of Sochi’s power supply system 180 percent to 1,013 megawatts. Investments in the city’s power supply infrastructure totaled 58 billion rubles.

The city now boasts an advanced hotel infrastructure of 55,500 suites.

The newly-laid telecommunication lines total about 1,000 kilometers in length, including 490 kilometers of optical fiber lines and 510 kilometers of communication lines inside facilities. The Olympic Centre of information technologies is the largest IT infrastructure facility of the Sochi Olympics.

Cleaning facilities were built and upgraded, a new garbage processing complex with a capacity of 200,000 tonnes of waste a year and two water intakes were built. A total of 2.5 billion roubles was spent on reinforcing the coast of the Imereti lowlands.

About 800 apartment buildings were renovated and the architectural look of another 6,885 buildings unified. A total of 25,000 trees and 17,000 shrubs were planted.

In preparations for the 2014 Sochi Olympics Russian builders for the first time ever used international ecological standards, which are now part and parcel of the first national ecological requirements in the building industry (effective from March 1, 2013). For holding the Paralympics Russia developed its first-ever methodology of determining the accessibility of facilities to people with limited capabilities. More than 1,400 facilities in the international hospitality zones have been made fully accessible for limited mobility people.