The Sochi Games: A spectacular success?

“In the end, nothing could rain on Vladimir Putin’s Olympic parade,” said David Filipov in The Boston Globe. Packs of stray dogs, Cossacks whipping Pussy Riot protesters, and even the threat of Islamic terrorism all failed to keep the Sochi Games from becoming a spectacular showcase for the world’s best athletes. By topping the medal count with 33, including a Games’ best 13 golds, Russia even reclaimed its past Olympic greatness. Sochi also proved that money—some $51 billion—can do the impossible, said John Leicester in the Associated Press, transforming a “decaying Black Sea resort” into a state-of-the-art Olympic venue “unthinkable in the Soviet era of drab shoddiness.” A preening Putin strutted through his coming-out party for “the new Russia,” posing for “selfies” with U.S. skiers, downing beers with Dutch and Canadian speedskaters and skiers, and then smugly smiling from his presidential perch at the elaborate Closing Ceremony, clearly satisfied that he’d pulled it all off.

No wonder Putin was smiling, said Nahlah Ayed in CBC.ca.He just successfully orchestrated the most elaborate and expensive photo-op in history. Putin selected Sochi himself, and drove years of preparations—sparing no expense. But now that the Games are over, said David Segal in The New York Times,what happens to Sochi—its 40,000 hotel rooms, four ski resorts, five sports arenas, one massive stadium, dozens of new restaurants and stores, and enough roads and railways to handle 20,000 visitors per hour? The latest plan from Russian officials is to build casinos there to draw tourists. But since wealthy Russians prefer to vacation abroad, and ordinary Russians can’t afford to travel, Sochi is now “at risk of becoming a gold-rush town that just ran out of gold.”

Therein lies the illusion at the heart of these Olympics, said Maria Alyokhina of the protest group Pussy Riot, also in The New York Times.The “giant, meaningless, alien objects” that made up the Olympic venues served to feed Putin’s ego and elevate him “to the rank of a pharaoh or emperor.” The face of the “new Russia” is nothing but a mask, concealing an ugly reality. “The most honest people in the country are currently in jail,” and the survival of Putin’s “quasi-fascist” regime depends on Russians being dazzled and distracted by his grandiose stunts. “For as soon as obliviousness ends, so does Putin’s power.”

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