The Olympic Games in Sochi

Infrastructural and Security Challenges

Author(s): Valery Dzutsev
Editor(s): Stephen Aris, Matthias Neumann, Robert Orttung, Jeronim Perovic, Heiko Pleines, Hans-Henning Schröder, Aglaya Snetkov
Series: Russian Analytical Digest (RAD)
Issue: 95
Pages: 5-8
Publisher(s): Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich; Research Centre for East European Studies, University of Bremen; Institute of History, University of Basel
Publication Year: 2011

The 2014 Winter Olympic Games in the seaside resort city of Sochi has become a unique self-imposed burden for Russia. The massive preparative works for the Olympics have highlighted the state's incapacity to manage vast construction and infrastructure projects effectively. The proximity of the Sochi Olympics site to areas of militant activity in the North Caucasus poses security risks for the games' visitors that can hardly be ignored. In addition, the Olympic games in Sochi have revived a skeleton in Russia's closet - the Circassian genocide issue, a people that once occupied the lands around Sochi, but were partly exterminated and driven out by the Russian empire in the 19th century.

Download:

English (PDF)