While the Opening Ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics won’t take place until this Friday at 7:30 P.M. EST, some athletic events have already started.
But it is not just figure skating, snowboard half pipes and luge runs that are getting tongues wagging in the Olympic venue.
Here are seven Sochi Sins that are looming large behind the festive medal podiums:
1. Corruption. Many prominent Russian businessmen and officials have been accused of Olympic-sized fraud – and there’s even a map to explain it. Putin estimated in April 2013 that the Olympics would cost around $6.5 billion for 22 projects, and yet the minimum assessment was nearly $10.9 billion for 200.
These funded “projects” include a theme park to be finished in 2020, a motorway that destroyed 370 acres of the protected Sochi National Forest, and a 3 billion dollar alpine ski resort built for Olympic tourists.
2. Death to the dogs. Thousands of stray dogs roam the streets of Sochi. Basya Services, a Russian pest control company, was contracted to exterminate stray dogs through the entirety of the Olympic Games. The director of Basya
“was stunned last week when he attended a rehearsal for the opening ceremony and saw a stray dog walking in on the performers.”
Though no one knows how the dogs will be put down (because “catch and dispose” could mean anything), one woman witnessed a doing being poisoned. This practice isn’t new – thousands of dogs were killed prior to the 2004 Olympics in Athens.
3. Construction. The process is slow – Gorki Plaza is not yet finished, and only six of the nine media hotels are operational. Residents are uprooted – construction accidents led to several homes in Sochi collapsing or tilting.
Workers are not compensated – over one hundred Serbians were deported to their home countries without pay after being lured to work on Olympic construction sites for the past three months.
The city is a safety hazard – but the piles of trash, crumbling sidewalks and unfinished buildings won’t be seen on television. And sometimes, framed pictures of Putin are more important that a finished hotel floor behind the receptionist desk.
4. #SochiProblems. With 103,000 followers already, the Twitter account @SochiProblems has made a laughing stock out of the Olympic city. Pictures of uncovered manholes, falling ceiling lights and brownish-yellow water have been posted on the account. Users tweet in their own “#SochiProblems,” such as this one from New York Times sports reporter Mary Pilon: ”Day starts w/email to editor “stuck in hotel room.” The door lock appears to be broken. I have wifi and granola.”
5. A fickle flame. Over its 40,000 mile journey, the Olympic torch burnt out 44 times - including after Putin lit it in front of the Kremlin.
6. Not-so-fickle terrorists. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has issued travel warnings for Russia, asking visitors to be on the look out for suspicious activity.
“Black widow” suicide bombers could potentially use toothpaste tubes to hide explosive devises, while internet threats were made by a militant Iraqi group called “Ansar al-Sunna” that took responsibility for the recent suicide attack on Volgograd.
The Russian military has tightened security, enforcing pat-downs at train stations and stationing 40,000 troops and policemen in Sochi.
7. Even the internet has doubts about Sochi. Okay, this one is less serious, but take a look at these Russian-made memes making fun of Sochi. Our favorite is “Olympic Bingo” to find failures and mishaps over the course of the games – but you also can play this Predicted Opening Ceremony Symbols version by The Wall Street Journal.
