Sochi residents (and residents of towns nearby) are beneficiaries of the splendid progress train that is currently barreling through Sochi. Or at least that's what the government's mouthpiece in Sochi, Tatyana Strakhova, believes:
The Olympics will be a huge celebration for Russia, and the modernized infrastructure it brings will have positive effects for the citizens of Sochi for a long time to come...
Of course, every city has its problems,” she says. “But the Olympics have given us a chance to improve everything here, and all these changes would have taken many years to accomplish if it wasn’t for the extra funds we’ve received because of the Games.” She explains that it is an impossible task to keep everyone satisfied while working on a project of this scale.
The people who are negative about the Games just want everything to stay the way it always has been,” said Strakhova. “The people of Bukhta are used to living a quiet life near the sea and living off tourism. Of course they are bitter about losing their homes and land.
Oh, those pesky townspeople. However, on the one hand, Ms. Strakhova is correct: progress is not without growing pains. People get used to doing things a certain way for long enough and any change is anathema to them. People complained about cars replacing horses, the internet, etc. Any time there is progress made for the greater good, there are always going to be dissenters who either have a vested (financial or emotional) stake in what's being replaced or are simply stuck in their ways. I could call my grandmother right now and in five minutes be talking about how much new kitchen mixers suck and how America peaked in 1964. I can't speak to the mixers but I think most people would disagree with the second half. Most of the gnashing of teeth over progress/change reflects a distinctly human condition in which nearly all things associated with youth are remembered as good. Being young is awesome, especially in America, and every time some institution from your youth is replaced, it's just one more reminder that you're getting older which, surely, is bad.
But quibbling about feelings isn't really my point here, nor is it the point of this blog. At a national level, everyone who knows anything about Russia would agree that poor/lack of infrastructure is a real problem. The roads are for shit and the traffic is awful, power plant failures are all too common, the August, 2009 Sayano-Shushenskaya Dam disaster cost 75 lives, etc. The stuff that does get built is too often only in Moscow and Russian building projects are notoriously, if not comically, corrupt: Then there's the Olympic road from Adler to Krasnaya Polyana (that's 30 miles) that will cost north of $7 billion, which is about $233 million a mile. Which would be funny, if it wasn't so sad.
Point being, the question at the heart of my little blog is whether or not Russia should be pumping north of $30 billion into building sports stadiums and highways, razing houses, extending rail lines, etc. when there are a host of other problems plaguing Russia.
At any rate, with Russia's version of eminent domain forcing more Sochi residents from their homes, more and more of the displaced are complaining for one of two reasons: those who accepted the government's offer to have a house built for them in a different part of town are finding their new homes to be about what you'd expect from a government contractor throwing up as many houses as possible in a short period of time. Those who took the payoff from the feds are at least able to rent nicer places elsewhere in town, though even then it's a steep downgrade from home owner to apartment renter. So reports Simon Eliasson:
The citizens of Imeretinskaya Bukhta do not all share her [Strakhova's] unreserved optimism about the Olympics. In total, about a thousand citizens in Sochi have had their property expropriated by the state to make way for construction. Valentina Selivanova is one of them. She lives with her husband in the area, but they don’t have much time left here. Their house will soon be demolished, though they still haven’t been informed exactly when it will happen.
“We have lived in this house since 1972, and now nothing remains of it,” said Selivanova.Her son Nikolai is emptying the house he grew up in. Roofing, copper pipes — everything that might be of value is stacked in a pile on the lawn in front of the house.
The house itself is empty, except for the one room in which Valentina and her husband still live. The empty windows of the other rooms gape hauntingly, and the roof is partially gone. Nearby the heap of metal scraps lies a mound of grapevines, torn up from the backyard. Selivanovna and her family chose to accept financial compensation for their house rather than move to a new house supplied by Olympstroi, the state corporation in charge of construction for the Olympics.
“The new houses in [the area of] Nekrasovka are being built in a hurry and lack quality,” said Selivanova. “There have been many problems with them, from bad flooring to skewed doorways. That’s the reason we chose compensation instead, rather than take the risk of ending up in a bad quality house.” Currently, the family is looking for an apartment in central Sochi. The compensation they received will be enough to buy about 60 square meters of living space there, compared to the more than 200 square meters they had in the house.
For the displaced, this better be one hell of an Olympic party.
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