Other than the hilarious shitshow side of this, I am very fearful something horrible is going to happen. The bodsleigh course won't be properly constructed, or a structure is going to fall. There's a good chance a lot of people are going to be seriously hurt.
Jian Ghomeshi (CBC) "My hotel room has no internet, no hot water, no curtains and no furniture. On the plus side, three of the four lights work. #Sochi2014"
Buddy of mine does a lot of shooting in strange places. Dubai, Thailand, Cambodia, Bahrain. He's on a contract to go out to Sochi after the games to shoot some stuff during the Paralympics. One of the guys he works with is already there. The quote: "Yeah, Bob messaged me on Facebook the other day just to say DUDE RUSSIA FUCKING SUCKS. This from a guy who was beaten by Mullahs for taking the picture of a girl in a niqab."
I was talking to a friend about this. Russia has displaced a lot of people due to the Olympics. From what I remember China had various scandals too about the impact on the local economy and so on. Yeah, we like to think we're better than that, but what would the US do if we had to host the Olympics? I'm sure people would get displaced for the games and so on. What are we gonna do, put 'em up in hotel rooms?
We (the US) have hosted the games a number of times.
I was aware of that, but I wasn't sure how long ago or what the impacts were on the respective cities at the time. There is this thing called Google, I'm sure I can look into it.
I went to the 2008 Olympics and ran into a bunch of ex-pats there that told me whole apartment blocks were razed (as I'm sure you heard) and the inhabitants never compensated and also, many foreigners were essentially kicked out of Beijing for the duration of the events so that they wouldn't speak to the visiting press. The amount of effort that went into PR for Beijing was crazy, what with training the residents how to interact with foreigners and not to cut in line, spit, smoke, talk loudly, etc. The sidewalks even had railings so that no one could jaywalk. If Sochi is indeed as shitty and ramshackle as these journalists are claiming, then I can only wonder how bad it was before. I just heard a Russian guy on the Diane Rehm show talking about how the Russian government was more focused on the sports facilities than the lodgings. It seems like journalists are really digging for concrete evidence of massive corruption, given the estimated expenditures of the games (which the Russian claims is $50+ billion for the whole region, not just Sochi itself). It probably depends on where it is. If it was in a big city rather than a resort, then I think the developers would have to be very careful. If it was at some resort town or whatever where there's a much lower and much less permanent population, I bet some of those strongarm tactics would come into play, depending on how much money those being displaced might have.what would the US do if we had to host the Olympics? I'm sure people would get displaced for the games and so on. What are we gonna do, put 'em up in hotel rooms?
A friend of mine posted on FB, paraphrasing, that he 'hate[s] the all bourgeois, distracting commentary on the hotel conditions and sexual innuendo of the two toilet room when there are human rights (i.e. gay rights) at stake.' He's lived in Russia before and had many a story to tell. America is a luxurious place, man. I didn't realize it until I squatted over a ground-level toilet that dumped sewage in the lake adjacent to a restaurant I used to frequent in southern Vietnam. Then I sprayed my ass out with a bidet.