Russian Ministry of Transportation announced today new rules which are intended to improve air-travel safety in Russia. Igor Levitin, Russian minister of transportation, said that all Russian airline companies will have to replace all their Tu-134 and Tu-154 airplanes. Around 270 of these planes are operating in Russia today. It is expected that many of these planes will be replaces by new Sukhoi SuperJet 100 (formerly known as Russian Regional Jet or RRJ) which is expected to be approved for commercial use soon, and by regional Airbus jets. Among other rules is increased training time required for pilots and mandatory installation of training simulators in Russian Federation for any airplane that will be certified to fly in Russia.

Source: lenta.ru

This is great news. I’m 185 cm tall, and my legs simply don’t fit between my chair and the one in front on both of these planes, and I’m glad they’re finally doing something about it :)

Ok, I previously quoted gazeta.ru article about Russian businessman Dmitry Shumkov acquiring 50% of French prestige skis manufacturer Skis Lacroix. Well, apparently that not true, recent Skis Lacroix’s press release denied that this information was true.

Russian businessman Dmitry Shumkov, who is also a member of Association of Russian Lawyers and Russian Olympic Committe partner, has acquired 50% of French prestige skis manufacturer Skis Lacroix. Following this deal, Skis Lacroix promises to invest €300 million in building Russian factory to build mountain skis, and in hotel constructions in Sochi.

Source: Gazeta.ru

Aleksandr Zhukov, vice-premier of the Russian Federation and the head of organizational committee for Sochi Olympic bid support, pledged today during his meeting in UN Paris headquarters, that construction of all Olympic projects in Sochi will comply with the requirements of UN Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage.

Meanwhile UNESCO had offered Sochi its expertise to help in evaluation of Olympic projects.

World culture festival «Etno-Sochi» will take place in Sochi, on the square in front of city administration, on February 22nd. Participants from Africa, India, Latin America, and Caucasus will perform their national music, and dances, treat visitors with national food and drinks, and teach them how to play their national musical instruments. The culmination of the festival will be etno-parade, and will end with “fire-show”.

Sounds fun! :)

It was announced that second railroad track from Tuapse to Adler will be constructed in the event Sochi will become 2014 Winter Olympics host city. “Vesti” news agency quotes head of North-Caucasus Rail Roads: “Today, the Tuapse-Adler track practically exhausted its carrying capacity and requires additionally financial investments”.

What we have today is this: a single track with a few “pockets” where trains can stop to let another train to pass by. This track is running along the sea shore, as you can see on the picture below, Read the rest of this entry »

Over 1200 people volunteered to help during upcoming visit by the International Olympic Committee. All these people will be accepted to volunteer during Olympics if Sochi gets the Games.

Source: yuga.ru

As I previously wrote, on March 8 (International Women’s Day) Sochi will host Missis of the World contest. New details about prizes were recently unveiled. As reported by “Komsomolskaya Pravda – Kuban” newspaper, the five finalists will receive prizes worth no less then US $10 000, and the winner will receive a crown with diamonds worth US $50 000. In addition to that, Missis of the World will receive other prizes; however organizers are keeping what they are a secret for now.

One of the coolest things about writing about something (my city in this case) is that while digging for more details you can learn so many things that you didn’t know before!

For example, today I found out that Sochi resident, and member of Russian National Bobsleigh Team Alexei Voevoda was once a professional arm-wrestler and he is the uncontested arm wrestling world champion among professionals for the 2000-2004 period!

Voevoda commented on his personal commitment to Sochi’s bid:

“I live in Sochi and I believe that my native city would host a once-in-a-lifetime Games. The unique climate, well-developed infrastructure and state-of-the-art sports facilities will provide comfort and convenience for athletes and guests. The 2014 Olympics is to leave a priceless legacy not just for Sochi and the Krasnodar Region, but for the whole country, acting as a powerful catalyst of winter sports development. We won silver at the 2006 Torino Olympics and I’m sure that at the 2014 Games in Sochi we’ll be inspired to go for the gold.”

February 11, 2007 around 580 000 people in 84 Russian cities will take part in traditional mass skiing competition «Ski-track of Russia». This year the competition will have two stages, first on February 11 in 84 cities, and second on February 21 in Sochi, in Krasnaya Polyana, where the winners of the regional competitions will participate.

The reconstruction of the runway for Sochi Airport should be finished this year and go into operation by the end of the year. After reconstruction it will be able to accept all types of civil aircrafts in any weather conditions.

The completion of the terminal reconstruction is planned for mid-2008, after which it will be able to service three times more passengers then it can now.

Ekaterinburg is located in Ural Mountains region and it is one of the biggest cities in Russia. It’s a magnet for investors, and if you one of them :), or if you will be traveling to this city in June-August, maybe you’ll be interested to know that you can purchase Ural Airlines tickets for Ekaterinburg – Sochi flights for June-August period for lower price. According to their press release price of one way ticket will be around US$150 if you buy it from February 1st to March 31st.

I haven’t had a chance to write about Sochi events in last few days, today too. So, today I’m just going to show you a few pics of Sochi I found on Flickr.com.

Today we’ll look at the train terminal in Central district. It is definitely one of the coolest architectural structures in Sochi. The main tower has a huge clock, which has signs of the zodiac instead of numbers, as you can see on one of the pictures. The terminal was recently reconstructed and now looks great. In front of this terminal is also Sochi’s main bus terminal, from where buses go in all directions, and also to other cities. However, many international buses operating by private companies do not leave from this terminal.

Here are lager photos: Read the rest of this entry »

Video recorded and compiled by a couple of guys paragliding over Krasnaya Polyana, with some nice shots of surrounding nature.

RuTube is a clone of YouTube

What happened

As I wrote in my last night post, power to most Sochi districts was cut off after powerlines went down in severe weather. It was interesting to see that the reports on situation in Sochi in Russian online media were coming in live with various details. I guess we should thank Information Age and Sochi’s Olympic bid for this.

So the timeline goes roughly like this: Read the rest of this entry »