Here are a few photos from the Olympic village in mountain cluster I took a couple of days ago.

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Coastal cluster Olympic park.

“Bolshoy” ice dome – Men’s hockey arena.

“Fisht” stadium – ceremonies, and football stadium for WC2018.

“Adler arena” – speed skating stadium.

Those of you who are planning to come to Sochi for the Winter Olympic games may find “2GIS Sochi” (by DoubleGIS) to be a very useful free mobile app.

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As my hometown is preparing to host the Olympics in a few months, we are trying to open up to the World by installing bi-lingual signs around the city. I collect some special translation jobs on this website: stayinsochi.com

Ticket sales to the Olympics games in Sochi will resume October 10, 2013 at 12pm Moscow time — that is 4am in NYC, 9am in London, and 4pm in Beijing.

Official ticketing website is tickets.sochi2014.com. You can purchase tickets only with VISA cards.

In case of online purchase, you’ll have to print out confirmation, and exchange it for real tickets in one of the ticket-distribution centers. List of these centers will be published later.

Vancouver Olympics tickets (c) VancityAllie @ Flickr

As Ice Sledge Hockey Tournament in Sochi come to an end  (congrads Team Canada for winning the Gold!), it has been announced that tickets to the Paralympic Games in Sochi will go on sale this month, on September 27.

You can read more about the Paralympic events in Sochi on the official website.

Tickets will be available at the tickets.sochi2014.com website.

Ice Sledge Hockey Tournament in Sochi, (c) Sochi2014

With six months to go until the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Sochi2014 organizing committee still has a lot of work opportunities to offer. Many of them do not require a lot of experience. At the time of writing, there are over 180 vacancies posted on the official Sochi2014 website.

Check it out!

Food safety authorities want to ensure that following popular in Russia food items are not sold in Sochi during Olympic and Paralympic Games next year.

• Homebrewed beer
• Home distilled spirits
• Homemade non-alcoholic drinks
• Cottage-cheese from raw (unpasteurized) milk
• Stockfish
• Dried mushrooms
• Cook canned vegitables, meat, fish, or mushrooms
• Macaroni Russian navy style (ground meat and macaroni)

These are official Sochi 2014 Pictograms! Do you like them?

Here are a few pretty ones from the official Sochi 2014 blog: Read the rest of this entry »

Within next two hours Russia will pick the official mascot for the Olympic Games 2014!

Concert, with nationwide phone, SMS, and internet poll in the end, I guess, has already been started. If you’re in Russia, you can watch it live at http://itv.1tv.ru/. I’m not sure you’ll be able to see it if you’re outside of Russia. Trying won’t hurt :-)

Here’s what we’re choosing from:

Except for left-most — Uncle Frost. Russia has decided to pull him from the poll because International Olympic Committee will have all rights for the mascot. Uncle Frost is Russia’s Santa, so it would cause some issues in the future.

Anyway, you can find more information and pictures at talisman.sochi2014.com

Which one would vote for?

I’m sorry, this picture is probably a little aggressive. But that’s what jumped into my head when I read new Sochi mayor’s initiative: all waiters and cab drivers will have to learn English or loose their jobs.

I recognize that it’s extremely important for services to be available in English by the time Olympics hits the city. And it’s really great that there will be free opportunities for everyone to learn it. But the ultimative tone of the mayor with which it was announced during his press conference irritates me a great deal. Let’s look at this straight – it’s really hard to learn a foreign language, and it’s harder yet to keep what you’ve learned if you don’t use it. Along the fine improvements promised, which should improve live in the city, come real problems to many when their lives come across anything related to the Olympics – people loose great living locations, property, businesses, or will be relocated quite far from where they lived all their lives. And now you intimidate them with possibility to loose their jobs? That’s just not right.

Well, this is the the twist in the news of the day, which is apparently, soon, English language courses will be available to all Sochi residents – free. No dates have been mentioned, it just been revealed that the money for this are allocated for in the target-program «Sochi — hospitable city».

And this is the good news!

Because stuff like this is embarrassing: Read the rest of this entry »

Vladimir Putin, working as a prime minister of Russia these days, said today during live video call with Vancouver, where the Olympic Games will take off in a couple of days, that preparations for the next Olympic Games (to be hosted in Sochi, Russia) have already attracted 500 billion rubles ($16.5 billion US). He also confirmed that so far we are on time financing and time vise.

New terminal of Sochi International Airport, which was under re-construction for over a year now, or maybe even two years, is expected to start operating in test mode in February, and to open in March of 2010. The International sector is expected to handle 500 passengers / hour, and triple that during the Olympics.

source; photo (c) D’82

Originally, when the building for this terminal was completed back in early 90’s, it was to be the domestic terminal, and the old (current) terminals, being much smaller were to be reconstructed to welcome international visitors. Now, it seems, they have different plans. I really hope this is not going to be terminal for international visitors only. Because Russian tourists, who visit this city in great numbers, who support it economically, who know and love the city, and who’s tax money are helping to bring the Olympics here, deserve comfort and convenience too.

A nationwide referendum will be held in Russia to  choose  a  symbol for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee President Dmitry Chernyshenko said.

“As  for  choosing  an  Olympic mascot, it will be done three years before the event in compliance with the rules. A mascot will be selected through  a  nationwide  referendum.  We  will  ask the entire country to choose an   image   that   will  symbolize  the  Sochi  Olympic  Games,” Chernyshenko said at a presentation of the event’s brand on Tuesday.

– Interfax

Official Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games Logo

The presentation of logo on the Red Square wasn’t canceled after all! The live coverage was, and the press conference where the new logo will be presented to the World was move to today, Tuesday December 1st (11am Moscow time). But the concert and presentation did go ahead. And the Official Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games Logo is what was leaked earlier – text “sochi.ru 2014”. Here are a couple of pictures from the event:

Source: nl.livejournal.com, you can find more photos from the concert there.

I guess now we just have to wait for a mascot. Bear.ru ? :o)

update: yet more photos are available here.

update 2: Sochi2014.com design has been updated fir the new brand. Official explanation of the logo: Read the rest of this entry »