When I started this blog, I was wondering if many people in my target audience would want to see Sochi hosting Olympics if Olympic Games were to be this year and why, what people know about Sochi, and what do they think about other candidate cities’ advantages and disadvantages over Sochi. So, I’ve posted my question on a few travel boards and got a few answers. One thing I noticed is that many Europeans would prefer Austria’s bid over other’s for the reasons of convenience – geographical proximity means cheaper travel, no visa requirements, etc. And I can relate to all that. But I couldn’t help myself thinking how short-sighted this line of reasoning is. And, I think, partly this comes from lack of information.

Here are my thoughts on how Olympics in Sochi will benefit Europeans over Olympics in Salzburg.

Need to get a visa to travel to Russia today is a big turn off. But getting Russian visa is easy, though it may be pricey. But looking at the way things are going, by the year 2014 visa requirements between united Europe and Russia could be the thing of the past, or at least getting one will be a lot easier than it already is. There’s strong political will in Russia to make whole European continent a visa-free area, and even though neither side seems to be ready to completely remove visa requirements yet, certain progress has been made over the past couple of years. Such as new simplified visa regime with Germany, France, Italy, and several other countries for students, journalists, entrepreneurs, science, and culture workers. As well as agreement signed in Sochi during Russia-EU summit this year, cementing a new visa deal under which EU and Russian citizens will have to pay about 35 euros for travel documents, almost half the cost of EU visas for other countries. And an agreement on mutual exchange of illegal immigrants, which is an important document, because if enforced during next few years, it will be the base for further talks to completely remove visa regime between Russia and EU. So in the next seven years we could live in very different Europe!

Having said that, think of this: (a) Sochi is not that far away, and recently privatized terminal at the Sochi International Airport soon will be able to accept planes from a lot more international destinations; (b) the Caucasus is one of Europe’s tallest mountain ranges. Europe’s tallest mountain, Elbrus, is located the Caucasus Mountains. Even though Elbrus isn’t in Sochi, Sochi is in the same mountain range, and the nature here is perfect for winter recreations; (c) what isn’t perfect is today’s winter resort infrastructure in Sochi.  However, (lets for a moment forget that rapid development is already on the way – new hotels, new slopes and lifts, etc.) if Sochi gets the Olympics, you’ll have a brand new resort built with latest technologies and new hotels, and it will be a new place CLOSE you could visit on your winter vacation! And then who knows, with all these developments, maybe you’ll like it enough to visit Sochi during summer (Black Sea coast), spring and fall (hiking, rafting, kayaking, offroad driving, paragliding, and more).