Coastal cluster Olympic park.

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

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

“Adler arena” – speed skating stadium.

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)

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?

Sochi native Alexey Voevoda (Алексей Воевода), and his teammate Alexandr Zubkov won Olympic bronze medal yesterday in two-man bobsleigh event in Vancouver!

This is Alexey’s second Olympic medal – he won silver in the four-man bobsleigh event at the 2006 Olympic Games in Turin.

Congratulation Alexey!

Alexey Voevoda

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.

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 »

I feel fairly certain, that the following is a real official Olympic logo for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games that will be presented this upcoming Monday.

That’s right, it’s what you see – “sochi.ru 2014” painted with color of the Russian flag, plus the Olympic rings. Stop for a moment before reading further and look at it: how do you feel about it? Do you like it?

Why I think this is it? I might still be wrong about this, but a few things here and there come together:

• Comments from officials how this will be unlike anything before
• The “explanation” comments that came with the leak (read on), and how they sounded in line with everything that government is doing while spending a lot of money of various project in Russia, not just the Olympics
• The fact that Russian Olympic committee took over sochi.ru domain name
• Unofficial confirmation from a person I believe is closely involved with organizers of Sochi 2014 Games

For some time now officials hinted that we’ll see something new, exciting and modern. And on November 25th, five days before the logo officially announced, Russian «Vedomosty» newspaper leaked this blurry photo of the logo. According to the article the point of this design is to promote Sochi, Russia and to tie Sochi to Russia in people’s mind. Love it or hate it you’ll probably agree that this design will probably help to reach this goal. In addition, from personal experience, many people in Eastern European – Poles, Slovaks, and Czechs I’ve talked to – who know about Sochi, think it is part of Georgia, which has never been the case. This idea of using even logo to “advertise” Russia goes along the line with the government’s position of getting the most out of money they’ve spend, and with spending a lot of money in recent years to improve the view of Russia in the world (like English language news channel, the use of top branding agencies, etc. – things that many other developed countries do, to be fair).

Another thing that will be unique about the logo is that the official sponsors will be allowed to use their corporate colors on the logotype.

Vedomosti sources claim the logo design is by Interbrand (here’s their Imagining the new Russia article), and no certain info on compensation for logo design. Though they quote design experts putting the price tag in the $600 000 – $1 000 000 million range.

So, what do you say – good? bad? How do you like it?

And what do you think they should do to Sochi.ru domain name after the Olympics?

Previous articles on this topic:

• New Sochi 2014 logotype coming soon
• Sochi.ru domain mysteriously transferred to Sochi 2014 officials
• Selecting mascot for Sochi Olympics!
• «Olympics» tag on this blog

The word out is Sochi 2014 logo is scheduled to be unveiled in the great deal of pomposity on November 30 in Moscow – the Red Square, a concert, etc.

Lenta.ru, Russia’s largest online news site, picked up on a blog post today, with another version of the logo. I don’t know why they started the speculation that this is the logotype that will be presented in Moscow next week, I don’t see where these rumors come from (upd: there’s a photo circulating online of this logo being presented somewhere). In any event, it’s pretty, so here it is for your viewing pleasure:

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 »

Main Stadium

The global design practice Populous is delighted to announce today that it has been selected by the State Corporation ‘Olympstroy’ to design the main stadium for the 2014 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Sochi, Russia.

Populous has also designed the master plan and overlay plan for competition and non-competition venues and facilities, and now adds designing the main 40,000 seat stadium to their expanding role on the 2014 Games. Populous is joined in the design consortium by Russian contractor Engeocom, and Botta Management.

“The main stadium design, in addition to the venue overlay plan we have prepared for the 2014 Games, delivers a wonderful vision for the winter Olympics, and a lasting sustainable legacy for Sochi. Its sweeping form responds to both its coastal location and mountainous backdrop, whilst its crystalline skin engages with its surroundings by day, and provides an iconic representation of the colour and spectacle of the games when illuminated at night. We are proud to be involved on such a level with Olympstroy,” said John Barrow, Populous senior principal.

This is the 25th year of Populous’ involvement in Olympic and Paralympic Games, and we are now the first design practice to have been officially appointed for the design of two Olympic Stadiums at one time. With Populous being the architects responsible for the main Stadium and venues overlay for the London 2012 Games, designing for Sochi 2014 ensures the continuation of the practice’s unrivalled experience in Olympic event planning and venue design. Each of these stadiums reflects new standards for Olympic sustainability initiatives.

Source: populous.com

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 »