A Few Monday Morning Links

Hope you are all keeping warm.  Get your week off to an Olympic start with some links for your edification:

• Moscow is looking to double its geographical size.  That's the link to The Guardian article about the plan by president Dimitri Medvedev and Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin to drastically expand the borders of the city.  This is the heart of a scheme to ease the chronic gridlock and congestion that has become a staple of Moscow life.  The plan is to move essential government offices and big businesses out to the suburbs over the course of twenty years, as the city swallows up dachas and forest around the city.  Naturally, this doesn't thrill said owners of dachas or people who like trees but, hey, once that Russian eminent domain machine gets rolling...
• For all you philet, filatell...all you people who like stamps, the official Sochi 2014 stamps will be available in six languages.  The first of the four planned stamp sets will be released this fall and will feature well-known natural scenes and cultural sites.
• This link is my favorite and it probably deserves more words than I'm about to give it, but here goes.  There are increasing signs, as reported by The Moscow Times, that St. Petersburg is considering an Olympic bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics.  Now other than fake job security for me, this development is interesting for a few reasons.  Russia, of course, is already on the hook to host the 2013 Universiade (World Student Games), a grand prix F1 event in 2014, the 2016 World Hockey Championships, and  the 2018 World Cup.  Why would Russia want to lay out even more cash to host another event?Well...

Alexander Zhukov, head of Russia’s Olympic Committee, told Around the Rings, the official Olympic news site, that the country believes major events play a vital role in improving the quality of life for all Russians.

 “Our policy is to have more big championships to promote a healthier style of life in Russia and have more children in different kinds of sports,” he said. “That is our aim as an Olympic committee and an Olympic movement.”

Ok, fine. But surely there must be dramatically cheaper ways to promote healthier lifestyles than hosting mega bucks sporting events.  For example, instead of hosting all of the above, the Russian government could probably afford to buy a year's worth of organic groceries for everyone in Russia.  Or just drop vegetables out of helicopters.  Or make vodka more expensive.  Oh, wait.

Or, maybe, Russia's picking up all these mega events shows the government's commitment to improving the nation's infrastructure.  Dmitry Belousov, of the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-term Forecasting, points to the upgrades in rail services in advance of the World Cup, improvements to airports and new roads as evidence that these events are driving infrastructure improvements.  

I don't say this to pick on Russia, because it happens all the time in the US as well, but the logic behind this is colossally bad.  Either infrastructure improvements needed to be made, or they didn't.  It shouldn't require a $30+ billion investment in the Olympics to improve road or rail travel to Sochi.  Similarly, you shouldn't need to host a hockey tournament to improve your country's airport or the World Cup to build more swimming pools.  And, unfortunately, when hosting events such as the Olympics, the infrastructure improvements will remain after the Games have passed but so too will the completely or partially unused facilities that the government will have to pay to maintain.  And I understand, to a point why Russia wants to host all these events; everybody likes to see their name in the paper and sports are really fun.  Not to mention, there are certainly some intangible benefits to hosting these events.  And, sure, there are a few cases kicking around of how a baseball stadium helped spur development in a city.  But city (or in this case, national) planning revolving around hosting big league sporting events, doesn't really make much sense.  Hell, the article even notes that Mr. Belusov "concedes that it is unclear why this long-term planning revolves solely around sport, but adds that this is, at least, better than nothing."

As long as 'better than nothing' is good enough, that's what you'll continue to get. 

FIFA Also Concerned about Security in Wake of Airport Attack

The day before the blast, FIFA president Sepp Blatter met with Russian soccer officials to sign what is called a Declaration of Appointment; essentially, this makes official Russia as the host of the 2018 World Cup.  Now, whether Russia should even be hosting the World Cup is a different argument for a different day (though the decision to let Russia host looks positively inspired in light of the dubious choice of Qatar in 2022) but the blast does bring to the forefront a primary concern FIFA has in awarding the event to Russia: an over-reliance on air travel.

The story I linked to notes this concern and you can read the full executive summary of Russia's bid evaluation here (pages 37-38).  I'll quote the relevant portion:

The bid’s transport plan is based mainly on the geographic clustering of its candidate Host Cities. The country’s vastness and its remoteness from other countries, coupled with the fact that the high-speed railway network is limited and would only link six candidate Host Cities by 2018, would put pressure on the air traffic infrastructure, potentially causing transfer challenges in view of the lack of alternative means of long-distance transport. The current air traffic situation is to be improved through major upgrades and capacity increases to the majority of the airports. However, any delay in the completion of the transport projects could impact on FIFA’s tournament operations an the proposed installation of temporary facilities could impose a high cost burden. In particular, a greater number of direct flight connections to major international airports would have to be made available from the majority of candidate Host City airports.

I'll translate that FIFA-speak into English: "Oh, shit, you can't get anywhere in Russia except on a plane.  They better improve their airports or we're screwed."

Now, if you're FIFA, in addition to the already obvious infrastructure problems, you're most likely looking at dramatically beefed-up security, longer lines, fears about another airport attack, etc.  Indeed, President Medvedev is already blaming "lax security" and The Economist is already reporting that the immediate move to force all persons entering Domodedovo airport to walk through metal detectors is already causing pileups which, of course, is its own security problem.  FIFA has to be thinking about another attack on a Russian airport during the World Cup, one that, if their documents are to be believed, could completely cripple the ability of all participants (players, media, fans) to get from one venue to another.  Will FIFA, which often demands carte blanche from its hosts, demand direct flights for the teams that bypass security?  Who knows?

Not to mention that you would have to believe that this incident is likely going to raise the cost of all future renovations and, at some point, you have to wonder when somebody is going to ask where all the money is going to come from. But that's a Russia-specific problem.

Regardless, no doubt both the IOC and FIFA will be watching to see how Russia responds to this crisis.  Privately, they're certainly sweating.

US Olympic Speedskaters Arrive in Moscow at Totally Different Airport

A contingent of US speedskaters arrived around 6 p.m. local time in Moscow today for the Essent ISU World Cup Skating in Moscow.  Not to bore you with the intricacies of international speedskating, but none of the speedskaters you may have actually heard of (Shani Davis, for example) made the trip, as they prepare for the upcoming World All-Around Championships in Salt Lake City this February. 

Now, the skaters arrived at Sheremetyevo airport, not at the Domodedovo airport where the attacks took place but, nevertheless, there is certainly a concern about whether the competition will continue.  For their part, the US skaters sound like they want to go forward with the competition (a 10 hour flight will do that). 

The big picture here (as I bury the lead) is that this can only heighten concerns that Russia will be able to provide for a safe and secure Olympic Games in 2014. Unfortunately, the IOC has been in this situation already with Russia, as they were forced to publicly and repeatedly implore the world that they were confident the Russians would provide for a safe Games.  When was this, you ask?  After last year's gruesome Moscow Metro bombings that killed at least 40 and wounded many more.  And that attack is believed to have been carried out by two Dhagestani 'black widows.'  More than anything, the IOC wants to avoid an uncomfortable situation like the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta or, worse still, the 1972 Munich Massacre (even if Eric Bana is the shit) - avoidance of any chance of being forced to repeat Avery Brundage's wooden 'the Games must go on' speech.

This is an issue I'm going to come back to repeatedly.  This is now two major terrorist attacks in less than a year, both carried out by folks with ties to separatist regions in the Caucasus.  What will the Russian government do to assure the world, and the IOC, that security in 2014 will be adequate?