Ecological Destruction Continues in Sochi

Good summary of the current ecological situation in Sochi, from an AFP article I caught on vancouversun.com.  Essentially, it covers the basics: that Russia is saying the gargantuan building project to prepare Sochi is "70%" finished and that this will be the "greenest" Olympics ever vs the Ecological Watch on North Caucasus saying that that ain't exactly the case:

“In general, environmental damage in Sochi is much worse than what we expected in the early stages of construction planning,” said Suren Gazaryan of the Environmental Watch on North Caucasus.

The regional NGO continues to monitor Olympic construction sites after both Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund announced they were withdrawing from the process last year.

“Right now construction crews have no oversight, they simply do what suits them, and this landslide is a good example,” Gazaryan said as he walked along a river in Sochi National Park whose shores have become encrusted with asphalt-like mud.

A mudslide from an illegal dump up the hill tore through the park and filled the river’s banks with debris from tunnel construction and other waste in January.

“Clearly leaving thousands of tons of waste on a steep hillside is not a good idea, but its convenient, and it can’t be stopped,” Gazaryan said as he picked off a chunk of the black substance for testing.

I guess you could classify leaving thousands of tons of waste on a steep hillside as "not a good idea" but, then again, this is the same country that has decided to spend over $30 billion to host the Olympics in the first place.  What I'm saying is that maybe two wrongs make a right and everything will go swimmingly in 2014.  Anyway...it's also never a good thing when, annoyed at the sham that is the never-ending meetings and promises from the Russian government to clean up their Sochi act, the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace have totally divorced themselves from this entire process of working with the government.  When two of the most devoted and tireless baby seal-saving organizations in the world deice that it's not worth it, that's bad, right?

Now, you can read the article yourself for all the gory details and/or visit the EWNC's website/facebook page/search for its vids on YouTube.  One thing I did want to point out, however, is the case of Gayane Antonova, which was touched on briefly in the article and, I think, highlights the difficulties of principled opposition to this project.  Antonova has been something of an outspoken critic of instances of waste/fraud/cutting down centuries-old pine trees.  As the story notes, when she called the local cops out to point out that, you know, Russian Railways had decided to just start laying track on the shore without any permission to do so, the cops hauled her in instead.  The charges?  Using foul language and/or hooliganism.

Fortunately, Antonova was found not guilty by the municipal courts (warning: link in Russian), which is something of a minor victory in a world where principled opposition, um, you know, sometimes gets run over by cars and flees the country.  The story of Antonova (and, again, I would like to reiterate that I am aware the the EWNC is not an unbiased source.  I would also like to reiterate that I am not a journalist.) serves merely to highlight that Russia remains an unsafe place to do business for those who attempt to speak out and who have a platform. 

Do You Link Me?

Let's dive right in to a heptathlon of links for this Friday.  As always, enjoy and feel free to contact me if you hear or read anything interesting.

1. According to RIA-Novosti, Slovenia wants in on Sochi building projects.  Slovenian prime minister Borut Pahor met with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, recently to talk business relations, particularly to sign an agreement allowing the South Stream gas pipeline to go through Slovenia.
2.  According to the AFP and others, Putin looked into a snow leopard's eyes and saw its soul.  With the relatively recent coronation as one of Sochi's Olympic mascots, the snow leopard has seen a surge in popularity.  Also, it was widely reported that the leopard was Putin's first choice.  So, he met one, and had this to say about the significance of the meeting: "That one of the symbols of the Olympics is a beast that was wiped out by man in the 1950s shows that Russia is different. Russia cares about nature, about its riches and preserves them for future generations."
3.  As I wrote about this week, the IOC blew through town for the 5th time to check the progress of the Sochi build.  The USA Today leads with the headline "Sochi work on track at quick pace," according to the words of Jean-Claude Killy, the man who lead the recon.  On the other hand, the Toronto Sun heads their article with "IOC concerned about progress for Sochi Olympics."  I hope to write a bit more about the visit this weekend but these opposing viewpoints are interesting nonetheless.  
4. Longtime foes Georgia and Russia settled it all last week...on the rugby pitch.  Georgia dominated, winning 38-6.  This sews up the top spot in Division 1 for Georgia in advance of next year's World Cup.
5. Sochi/Adler airport, which will be used by most everybody headed to the Sochi Olympics, has upgraded its technology.
6. Companies (not sure which ones, exactly, beyond Gazprom) have signed a so-called "green" declaration, promising to protect the local ecosystem. 
7. Not really a link, but I'll actually be heading to Kazakhstan on Sunday to work as an election observer for the "accelerated" presidential election.  If I get some time over there and have access to the internet, I'll try to update any relevant news, etc.  Also, I'll try to write some stuff up this weekend to auto post over the next week.

Global Sports Forum Follow-up

As I've discussed here previously, the Global Sports Forum was held last week in Barcelona. And along comes Russell Scibetti from The Business of Sports with neat little recap/paraphrase of Sochi 2014 head Dimitri Chernyshenko's remarks at the forum.  A lot of it you've heard somewhere before from any figure in charge of preparations for any large event but, what the hell, I'll go ahead and rebut some of the paraphrases (does that count as journalism?).  Without further ado:

•  On the legacy of Sochi 2014: The Games will go a long way to improve the environment. Green standards are being used for all new venue construction. They want to be as carbon-neutral as possible throughout the construction and the Games. There is also a lift for the Sochi national parks, which in turn will help save the snow leopard (being used as one of the mascots as well).

Obviously, not everybody agrees on this.  There's all kinds of environmental issues that are up for debate and you can find some of those in my old posts and elsewhere on the internet.  If there's something being built in Sochi, odds are somebody is pissed off about it.  Oh and there's this:

• In line with the previous statement: They literally started from nothing, a “blank canvas” which was a big advantage allowing them to build an infrastructure. They are the biggest construction site in the world and have over 42,000 workers involved.  

This statement is true, assuming by "them" and "advantage" we're referring to the Sochi 2014 builders and not the vacationers, people who were bought out of their homes to make way for the Olympics or the environmentalists.  I'm sure it's a thrill for any construction company to get carte blanche for a project but I'm not sure it's an advantage to the other 180 million people in Russia who don't live in Sochi that the government is spending $30 billion to host a party. 

•   And finally, about corruption and security: There is an image of corruption in Russia, but the Sochi project is very transparent and wants to act as an anti-corruption model for other projects. You can never completely stop terrorism, but the authorities are doing everything possible. There are 100 different nationalities living in this area in peace. Sochi “will be” the safest place ever for the Olympics.

Nevermind about Dimitri Medvedev's ordering a probe into possible corruption surrounding the Sochi build last summer (ignoring the fact, of course, as to whether that was an honest attempt to root out corruption or just for show).  Or the Moscow Times report last summer that Medvedev was using the boogeyman of terrorism to distract people from endemic corruption in Sochi.  But Medvedev is shifty, using the actual terrorist act this year in Domodedovo airport to shift the attention to Georgia and other foreigners who might have it out for Sochi.  Oh, don't forget that Olympstroi, the builder in charge of the project, is on (I think) its third leader in four years.  Other than that, shipshape.  

Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Replaces Olympic Building Head

Yesterday's news, today here at Sochi Watch! 

A couple of weeks ago, Taimuraz Bolloyev, head of the state-owned "Olimpstroi," the company in charge of all the Olympic Construction in Sochi, resigned from his post, citing health reasons.  Pretty benign, right?  Well, except for the fact that this means that Olimpstroi is now on its fourth CEO in three years.  Oh, and the fact that corruption rumors continue to swirl around the company and the project.  Thus spake the newly renamed Moscow News (formerly Moscow Times):

Clouds are gathering over the state-owned company in charge of delivering the Sochi Winter Olympic complex following the resignation of Olimpstroi CEO Taimuraz Bolloyev.  Bolloyev is stepping down on health grounds – but his departure came just two weeks after Dmitry Medvedev demanded an audit into government spending for the 2014 games.

And the very day Bolloyev bowed out Olimpstroi were facing the fraud squad. 

The Krasnodar region Investigative Committee has filed 27 cases of corruption among government circles and companies in Sochi.

“There has been considerable work to identify the facts and investigate cases of corruption among local government employees and the law enforcement system in preparation for the Olympic games in 2014,” Alexei Kramarenko, Sochi Investigation Department head, told Interfax on Monday.

Six criminal cases have been opened against senior members of the state corporation Olimpstroi, over a fictitious project which involved fake documents and which siphoned off more than 23 million roubles, he said.

This entire situation deserves a bit of background before we dive headlong into this most recent allegation of corruption

In the summer of 2010, an article on Christian Science Monitor (which drew heavily on a Novaya Gazeta story) was, as far as I can tell, the first widely-disseminated report in English on corruption in the bidding process for contracts in Sochi.  The complainant, Valeri Morozov, who owns a company that bid for a building contract in Sochi, is the rare individual speaking out against the entire process.  And here's the interesting part: Morozov freely admits to paying a bribe in order to secure a construction contract.  His gripe is that, despite all this, he was denied the contract.  Morozov even fled the country after speaking out, a testament to the particulary precarious situation for whistle-blowers within Russia.

In response to this entire episode, President Dimitri Medvedev lauched an investigation into the bidding process.  All of this was an extension of Medvedev's campaign promise to root out corruption within Russia, something that has become a fact of life businesses and people in post-Soviet Russia; you pay the bribe, account for it, and move on.  Cost of doing business.  Since his election, there's debate as to whether Medvedv is serious about rooting out corruption or whether this is a pr campaign.  That debate is a whole 'nother ball of wax. 

And here we are again less than one year later, with a 'coincidental' resignation of Olimpstroi's 3rd boss, all while Deputy Prime Minister Dimitri Kozak, the man nominally in charge of the whole operation, denies any connection between the 27 pending fraud charges and Bolloyev's resignation.  Said Kozak: “There were no facts presented concerning abuse or corruption at either SC Olympstroy or any other authority body, despite the close scrutiny from a number of different bodies."  Sure.  

Bolloyev is being replaced by Sergei Gaplikov, another government lifer with no experience in construction.  There's not a lot out there in English about Mr. Gaplikov, but Novaya Gazeta mentions that he entered into public service in 1994 as member of the advisory council on the Budget Committee.  It also quotes an unnamed source as saying something to the effect that Bolloyev's resignation was not connected to his health but, rather, that he had planning his exit for more than a year, frustrated by having to balance three "centers of power:" the White House, Deputy PM Kozak and his staff and the leaders at Olimpstroi.

Or, you may prefer the reason given by oppositionist and former Sochi mayoral candidate Boris Nemtsov, an outspoken critic of the environmental trauma to the region brought on by this project.  In his mind Bolloyev left for the same reason the other two former heads of Olimpstroi did: when they realized the scale of the damage being done to the environment, they left -  "They don't want that sin on their soul."

Environmental Watchdogs Allege "Greenwash" at UNEP Meeting

I've written some about the environment already, and I'm going to return to it now and for the next few posts, most likely.  It's not that I don't care about the pending unveiling of the mascot for the 2014 Winter Games, because I do (and who doesn't?).  It's just that effect of the massive construction projects in and around Sochi are shaping up to be the critical story of the next 3 years.  These projects, overseen by the Soviet-sounding Olympstroy, are already proving to be the one aspect of this project controversial enough to draw international scrutiny.  Yuri Trutnev, Russia's Environment and Natural Resources Minister, of course reports that everything is ship-shape down there in Sochi; no problems at all.  Now, you may be surprised to hear this, but not everybody agrees.

As I've mentioned before, the United Nations Environmental Programme was in Russia a couple of weeks ago to meet and greet, listen to the public, talk to environmental bigwigs overseeing the construction, as well as some international environmental watchdogs.  Well, apparently some environmentalists didn't want to play along.

In an article from the Moscow Times, Greenpeace accuses UNEP of a "greenwash."  Catchy, isn't it?  At any rate, both WWF and Greenpeace boycotted the process, and Environmental Watch of the North Caucasus (EWNC), that itch that neither the Russian government nor UNEP can scratch, left less than impressed.

Environment Watch North Caucasus, the main green pressure group in the region campaigning against the adverse environmental impact of Olympic construction projects, met with four delegates from the UNEP's Sochi group Sunday evening.

“We met with four experts from the UNEP,” said Suren Gazaryan, a spokesman for Environment Watch who was at the meeting, “but the organizing committee, which arranged the visit, did all it could to delay and limit the amount of time we spent with them,” including delaying announcing the meeting till the very last minute and timing it for the end of the last day of the delegations' visit.

Greenpeace Russia and the WWF boycotted the UNEP visit amid concerns that the inspections have become part of a so-called “greenwash” of the controversial project.

 The UNEP has sent a delegation to Sochi annually to inspect the environmental impact of the Olympic building sites.  But after an October 2010 visit, greens said the working group had “failed to establish a dialogue between officials and the public.” WWF Russia called on the UN group to “admit that attempts to make the Sochi Olympics environmentally friendly have failed.”

“It is difficult to say whether the UNEP is being manipulated or what. But we do not want to be part of a green PR for the Olympic projects,” Pyotr Gorbenko, managing director of WWF Russia, told The Moscow Times.

And so it goes, back and forth.  What I'm interested in seeing is how much traction statements from groups like WWF and Greenpeace on this topic gain internationally.  Generally speaking, and much to the IOC's liking, the Olympics don't tend to elicit negative reactions from the general public, despite the enormous costs that the hosting countries are expected to bear and the amount of that which is passed on to the taxpayer.  People tend to remember the athletes and the performances and, it could be argued, rightly so.  But scores and medals are the easy part; hopefully I'll be able to help you better understand how the sausage is made.

Environmental Quick Hit

Here's a link to the invaluable Around the Rings with their brief take on the visit of UNEP (see below) to Sochi.  I'm working on a bigger post for tomorrow or Tuesday, so hopefully this will tide you over.

As a sneak preview, here's a video from a Russian environmentalist showing the condition of one river in the region; damage believed to have been caused by construction in and around Sochi.  Even if you don't speak Russian, it's worth a look-see.  

Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee and UNEP to Hold Public Discussion

News today that the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee (SOC) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) will be hosting a forum over the course of the next four days to discuss environmental issues surrounding the preparations for the Games.  Outside of 'resettling' Sochi residents to make way for Olympic progress, the environmental impact of the numerous building projects is probably the hot-button international issue as Russia prepares to host the Games. 

Let's backtrack for a bit: Interestingly, the only parallel in terms of building costs for an Olympic Games is Beijing in 2008.  Chinese officials have always maintained that they spent around $15 billion on the Games, while independent observers estimate that the cost could be closer to $40 billion (remember: Russia is planning to spend $30 billion).  I'll say this: cost estimates for the Games are notoriously tricky to estimate.  By that I mean that Russia, as with China, counts a lot of the cost as 'infrastructure improvements.'  Russia wants you to read 'infrastructure improvements' as 'we are improving your lives and would have spent this money anyway, Games or no Games.'  This is dubious, of course; it is hard to justify even $15 billion in 'infrastructure improvements' in a sleepy, Black Sea resort like Sochi. 

But I digress. Let's regroup and remember that all of this building means for Russia that 1) people are being displaced and 2) the natural environment is arguably irreparably being altered.  Ergo, the involvement of UNEP.

Around this time last year, UNEP released a report on the environmental conditions in Sochi, which arrived at such critical conclusions as "the Sochi Games present both challenges and opportunities."  This will be their 4th visit to meet with the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee, while the World Wildlife Fund's Russian-language site laments that neither they, nor Greenpeace, have been invited.  The Russian version of the WWF is critical of the building process, noting the destruction of the Sochi National Forest, local rivers and fear that this entire process is merely 'green pr,' as opposed to actually finding solutions to environmental problems.  Oh, and did I mention proposed building in the West Caucasus, an area designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site?

Prime Minister Putin has gotten involved, of course, blasting some of these construction firms for some of the sites they chose for certain events, even getting some projects stopped and relocated, stating that 'in setting our priorities and choosing between money and the environment, we're choosing the environment.'  Now it's easy for Putin to take this position; he is a major reason why these firms have access to these projects, so he can afford to take some shots at them here and there, all the while coming off as the good guy to the local and international media.  Of course, these construction firms, and the project in general, is bankrolled by the government, so it will be quick to blame supposedly independent firms for any failures but take credit for any success.  It is the nature of the beast. 

Sadly, I am also reminded of the story of former SOC consultant, Dr. Sergei Volkov.  The doctor, who has since fled Russia for Ukraine out of fear of being arrested, was an environmental consultant to the SOC and repeatedly warned the Russian government to step back and further research  the complex geology and ecology of the region.  He warned of of possible landslides, the presence of Mercury and Uranium on some sites and that the weather patterns in Sochi were not properly studied.  Tragically, 3 Russian construction workers lost their lives and millions of dollars were washed away when a storm destroyed a port being built in Sochi - in a location Dr. Volkov warned had unpredictable weather.  And now, after what he claims were  repeated threats, Dr. Volkov is in hiding.  Is this starting to sound familiar?

I'll continue to do my best to follow the news, if there is any, that comes out of these public forums, whether in English or in Russian.  Thanks for reading.