I don’t know when this happened, but it appears that some not-too-long time ago Google Maps updated their sattelite images of Sochi. Previously they did not have high resolution pics of anything but parts of Central district. Now they do.

I found a couple more photos of tornado over sea in Sochi! :-)

These were taken by lav-elena in Khosta district on July 28, 2009.

Another one » Read the rest of this entry »

By the year 2010 approximately 1000 families will be relocated due to the Olympic construction development. Over 2500 hectares of land will be bought out from private owners for Olympic projects in Imeritinskaya Valley, Krasnaya Polyana, Vesyoloe village as well as Khosta and Central districts. Central district is affected by road infrastructure project.

– information from Vice Minister of Russia Dmitry Kozak via Interfax and Lenta.ru

Other Sochi quick facts »

As was promised during the Olympic bid, Russia is trying to reintroduce Persian leopards in Sochi national park — the area they inhabited long time ago. The program is being supported by WWF-Russia, private companies and a number of Russian government agencies. You can read the details in WWW article and in press release on olympic.org.

I’ve heard we have bears, and wolfs in our forests… imagine meeting one of these kitties there :)

photo source: daylife.com

photo source: themoscowtimes.com

“Yota” started testing its WiMAX network in Sochi. “Skartel” operator, owner of Yota brand, have launched WiMAX networks (IEEE 802.16-2005, 2.5-2.7 GHz) earlier this year in Moscow and St.-Petersburg (where they now cover up to 70% of city), and in Ufa in the beginning of this month.

The beginning of beta testing in Sochi and Krasnodar was announced two weeks ago. Yota selected 250 testers in Sochi, and 350 people in Krasondar – the capital of region where Sochi is located. Network coverage in Sochi is already available on Yota’s website, and according to it they currently cover only most of Central district and center of Adler.

So, soon Sochi will join very small number of cities in Russia where hi-speed wireless internet is available.

Btw, WiMAX Forum – Russia will take place in Moscow next month.

Last month Sochi hosted finals of the Beach Volleyball European Championship Tour 2009. Here’s slide show from the event.

(c) piratenergy

I a few amazing lightning-over-the-sea photos taken by other people in Sochi, and wanted to share with you.

The photos are clickable, and lead to the large size originals.

Taken in Dagomys district of Sochi (c) v_kryukov53

Taken in Adler district of Sochi (c) pmirosevic

More amazing photos » Read the rest of this entry »

Landline telephone code of Sochi is 8622, and all numbers are six digits. Telephone code of Russia is 7, so to call a number in Sochi you dial +7-8622-##-##-##.

Mobile operator’s codes are all different, and the numbers consist of three digit code and seven digits number. Here are telephone codes of major mobile operators in Sochi:

MTS (МТС): 918, 988
Megafon (Мегафон): 920, 930, 928, 938
Beeline (Билайн): 903, 905, 906, 909, 960, 961, 962, 963, 964.
TELE2: 902, 908, 952

Calls between operators in Russia are always more expensive than inside operator’s network, and there are no such thing as free long distance calls. So, if you’re planning to get local number, consider this: absolute majority of people living in Sochi have MTS numbers. This is due to the fact that several years ago MTS acquired major local operator «Kuban GSM».

Other Sochi quick facts »

Nissan Russian Adventure 2010 (formerly known as Nissan Caucasus Classic) is once again coming to Sochi on January 21, 2010.

Nissan Russian Adventure will take place at the ski resort Krasnaya Polyana in the Western Caucasus. Krasnaya Polyana is the host of the alpine and nordic ski events of the 2014 Winter Olympics with Sochi as host city. Sometimes called the “Russian Courchevel”, Krasnaya Polyana is the most sophisticated ski and snowboard resort in Russia, located just 45 minutes from the Black Sea, and well known as President Putin’s favourite holiday resort. It is also famous for its awesome heliskiing in the spectacular Caucasus mountain range.

The contest is organised by renowned Russian extreme skier Nikolay Veselovskiy, who is also chief heliskiing operator in the area and pioneer of heli-skiing in Kamchatka. For the qualifying run the contest will take place at the actual Krasnaya Polyana Mountain very accessible for the public. The final run with 22 riders will be held on another peak with heli access. The exact peak will be determined depending on where the best snow conditions are to be found. The snow quality is quite unique in the area as the great proximity of the sea produces a characteristic snow that sticks to the steepest angles.

— nissanrussianadventure.com

Here are couple of photos by E. Vasenyov from last year’s event:

(c) 360sca

A project of the central Olympic stadium – stadium where opening and closing ceremonies will take place, as well as many medal ceremonies – has been finally selected few days ago. The winner of the tender is a group of companies which includes «Mosproject-4», Russia (architecture design), Populous, USA (architecture design), Botta Management Group, Switzerland (construction management), «ENGEOCOM Association» CJSC, Russia (construction).

The stadium must be completed by the end of first quarter of year 2013. After the Olympics it will be used to host football games and comply with all FIFA regulations.

Below are a few renderings from icube.ru which list «Mosproject-4» as a client, so, I guess, we’re looking at what future stadium will look like.

More renderings: Read the rest of this entry »

Organizing committee of the XXII Olympic Winter Games and XI Paralympic Winter Games of 2014 in Sochi has launched official team blog at blogs.sochi2014.ru … but it’s only in Russian, at least for now.

Looking at the dates it appears they’ve been giving it a thought since May, but revived the idea only now, in September. The announcement was posted yesterday.

The posting is for the officials only – there already are a few posts about marketing, environments, finance, etc. But you can comment, and the best thing is they do reply! You have to register, though, or use one of your existing OpenID accounts (if you’re registered at Google, Facebook, Yahoo (must enable first, though) – you have one).

I’m glad they finally did this, and hope they don’t run out of steam blogging and responding when more people start visiting.

Official Sochi2014 Team blog: http://blogs.sochi2014.ru/

Oh, and it runs on WordPress too! :-)

After a recent comment to a year old post about plans of a high-speed train from Moscow to Sochi, I decided to collect bits and pieces of what I know on a subject into a post.

“Sapsan”

• Russian Railways already sign a contract to buy 8 highspeed trains (“Sapsan” / Velaro RUS platform) from Siemens. They are to be used to connect Moscow with Sant-Petersburg, Nizhniy Novgorod, and possibly Sochi.
• First commercial use of this train is schedilered for December 18th this year, between St.-Pete and Moscow.
• The trains will use existing tracks, but the infrastructure will have to be modernized, and schedulers re-worked. This work for Msk-SPb trains is completed.
• 10 carts, carrying around 600 passengers
• Technical possibility of 250-330 km/hr, but for now will operate ~200 km/h, and even slower close to the cities.
• Planned 3 hrs 30 min – 3 hrs 45 min one way ride to SPb, 4 hrs to N. Novgorod, 17 hrs to Sochi
• Ticket price is still unknown at this point, even for Msk-SPb rides. But they’ll have to compete with 1500-2000 rub regular train tickets, and ~2000+ rub airplane tickets.

What are Sochi’s chances

According to an article on rbc.ru, it sound like a solid plans.

• September 22, 2009 – just yesterday – Russian Railways presented “Sapsan” in Rostov. Why in Rostov? Probably because it’s largest city on Russia’s south, and maybe train will make a stop there(?)
• The test rides in Russia’s south will begin on September 24 – thats tomorrow – on RZDs’ testing track Belorechenskaya – Maykop. And Moscow – Sochi high speed train should start running after the tests are completed.

“Sapsan” train. Photo source ru_railway

You can find more photos of this train, exterior and interior, here: community.livejournal.com/ru_railway/

Today Lukoil opened solar powered gas station in Krasnaya Polyana. This is certainly first one in Sochi, and according to Lukoil’s press release (rus) it is the first gas station in Russia to use such system developed domestically. The solar generated energy will mostly be used for internal and external lighting, and as an emergency backup system to ensure station running without interruption.

Solar powered gas station in Krasnaya Polyana, Sochi. photo (c) Lukoil

Russia’s Sberbank, which was earlier selected as an official partner of Olympics in Sochi, is holding public competition for the best Sochi 2014 credit card design. The main prize: a trip to Vancouver in February 2010

The official website for the competition is sochi-card.ru

Unfortunately for most of the visitors of this blog the competition is open to Russian citizens only. If you are eligible you can read rules of participation (in Russian) here. But, luckily for those who have any skills, you’ve got a pretty good chance, ’cause most of the designs submeted by now look more like kindergarten drawings.

Here are a few of the ones I personally liked. You can see them all in the official gallery.

Do you like any of those designs?

75 000 construction workers will be working on Olympic projects in 2010-2011 — this is the estimate from Dmitry Kozak, Vice Prime-Minister of Russia responsible for overseeing Olympics preparations. RIA Novosti also quotes him saying that there are no plans to specifically involve migrant workers, all work places should be filled via competitive transparent tenders.

According to him there are only 299 foreign workers are currently working on Olympic construction projects out of around 11 000 people working there today.