

Journalists at Sochi are live-tweeting their hotel experiences - danso
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/02/04/journalists-at-sochi-are-live-tweeting-their-hilarious-and-gross-hotel-experiences/

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tinbad
For someone who grew up in Russia this doesn't come as a surprise at all. This
is how it is when the whole world is watching, one can only imagine what
everyday life is like in Russia. I remember the stories of how back in the
1980 Olympics the, normally completely empty, grocery stores in Moscow were
all of a sudden filled with 'luxury' food items imported from Finland to show
the rest of the world how great the country was. Meanwhile Moscow was a
complete lockdown and nobody could get in or out of the city. Deja vu all over
again ;)

~~~
larrys
Can you confirm whether the russian in the "please don't flush toilet paper"
is correctly translated?

Seems to be more likely that they actually mean "paper" or "paper towels" not
"toilet paper".

It is quite common to not want anything _but_ toilet paper flushed so I'm
wondering if that is what the sign actually is meaning to say.

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imissmyjuno
it is toilet paper for certain. source: russian speaker.

~~~
oddx
No, it isn't. Sign says only "paper". It isn't clear what they mean, can be
interpreted differently.

~~~
Spooky23
Part of traveling is groking the local terminology for things. In Atlanta,
soda is "coke". Ohio, "pop". New York "soda".

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10feet
Every single olympics, there is dire warnings before hand, things will not be
ready. There are guaranteed huge traffic problems, not enough volunteers or
infrastructure.

Then as soon as it starts, all is forgotten, it is a wonderful time, the best
Olympics ever, greatest world records broken, the best Olympians ever.

~~~
pedalpete
You hear the run up of 'they aren't going to be ready', but you don't hear it
days before the Olympics. In Whistler/Vancouver, our housing was completed
months before. You didn't have incomplete buildings or event venues leading up
to the day. Some of the venues may have cut it close (I don't really
remember), but still, I don't think anything was left to a few days before.

I really don't care about the journalists though. I'm more concerned about the
athletes and the venues, particularly for their safety in many of these sports
where (by the sounds of things) the competition will be essentially a 'trial
run' of the venue. In Whistler, our Bobsled and Nordic Ski venues all hosted
warm-up test events before the Olympics.

~~~
bri3d
The venue issue is already present:
[http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-02-03/why-extreme-nature-
soc...](http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-02-03/why-extreme-nature-sochi-
slopestyle-course-has-snowboarders-scared) .

The main issue illustrated by this story is that the warm weather in Sochi is
causing many of the venues to be built sloppily or incorrectly. In this case
the slopestyle venue was difficult to build because of poor snow quality and
the jumps are all massively overbuilt to try to compensate for high expected
melting rates over the coming week.

~~~
pedalpete
We had similar concerns in Whistler regarding the Women's Downhill Ski Coarse
in particular. That isn't what I meant when about being concerned about
safety. This sounds to me like a very challenging course, that doesn't mean it
is unsafe. Women on the downhill in Whistler were complaining that the course
was too difficult. Olympic organizes also voiced concerns, but realistically,
that's just how we do it in Whistler, maybe Sochi is a bit of the same.

When I am concerned about safety, I do mean safety of the athletes, but I
don't mean jumps being too big. I'm more concerned about poor fencing,
inconsistent terrain, etc. A pedestrian pathway fell down just before the
Commonwealth Games in India a few years ago. Those are the types of safety
concerns I was worried about.

As far as 'big jumps' go, I figure, if you're a professional athlete and your
sport involves jumps, you need to know what speed you can safely take those
jumps at.

Contrast that to the tragic Skeleton accident on the first day of the Whistler
Olympics. Everybody had said how challenging the track was, but nobody
imagined anybody would fly off the track and hit a pole. The challenging track
is acceptable, the pole is absolutely not. There was nothing the athlete could
have done to protect himself once he came off the course.

I don't know that the snowboard cross comparisons is that kind of dangerous.

~~~
bri3d
Point taken about challenging courses, Whistler, and Sochi. The bike park at
Whistler is a pleasure every time and still the best in the world IMO, in no
small part because Whistler aren't afraid to build big features.

I certainly don't think that the snowboard cross course as reported so far is
dangerous in a deadly way like an alpine course with flawed fencing design or
a skeleton or bobsled course with solid obstacles in proximity, but the
reasons that the snowboard cross course are bad are still very worrying.

Based on what athletes said for example here:
[http://www.ctvnews.ca/sochi/safety-concerns-over-sochi-
slope...](http://www.ctvnews.ca/sochi/safety-concerns-over-sochi-slopestyle-
course-intensify-1.1669625) , the snowboard cross isn't huge because the
builders wanted to go big by design, but rather to anticipate extreme melting
activity. And, like the Whistler courses, the slopestyle course was supposed
to have been tested a year ago but was unable to be constructed due to a lack
of snow.

I certainly don't think it's a good sign.

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MichaelApproved
What's more frustrating than your government overspending money on corrupt
construction? Not even getting what you paid for. Construction and preparation
costs were in the billions. Much of the money was given to Putin's associates
and, in return, the people get this trash.

Same goes for Obama with Healthcare.gov. We spent all that money and got
garbage in return.

~~~
phillmv
Well, healthcare.org was an incompetent contractor. It wasn't _corrupt_.

~~~
Spooky23
It was grossly negligent at best.

The lack of contractural provisions requiring the contractors perform to get
paid displays a level of incompetence that suggests corruption.

The real issue was probably an insane deadline that required a "fast"
procurement vehicle. I consider that systemically corruption.

~~~
MichaelApproved
What was so insane about the deadline? The site was mostly fixed in a couple
of months and that included time to find someone to fix the site and dig
through all the toxic code that was already written.

With the level of incompetence that was shown in the site, it's extremely
unlikely the original contractor just needed a couple more months to get the
project finished.

The deadline was more than realistic. There was plenty of time to create
something useful, they were just too incompetent to do so.

~~~
ewoodrich
Wait, it's "extremely unlikely" that the original contractor needed a "couple
of months" and yet you state that the deadline was not insane because it was
fixed in a "couple of months"?

Most of the actual repair to the site was done by the contractors in question,
the "IT surge" team that was brought in were mostly for quarterbacking what
needed to be done.

Would CGI Federal and the other contractors got it working with a bit more
time? Maybe not, but I don't quite get how you can present such sweeping
assumptions as fact.

~~~
MichaelApproved
The site was riddled with so many issues and "simple pickups", like 404 pages,
that I had no confidence in _that_ management team to finish the project
within a couple of months. However, a _new_ management team quickly showed
that the problems were fixable by a competent team. I believe the timeline was
reasonable for a well managed team.

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tomasien
This seems way different than the usual "everything is going to be terrible"
months out stuff we usually see. This is "the games start tomorrow and the
HOTELS aren't actually finished".

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oddx
As of "do not flush toilet paper", I have seen such signs in many places
around the world (but I don't know reasons behind it), and it isn't only my
experience [1]. It's intresting that it was a new for journalist who travels a
lot.

[1] [http://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/20967/how-to-
deal-...](http://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/20967/how-to-deal-with-a-
full-trash-can-for-used-toilet-paper-where-you-are-not-allowe)

~~~
eigenvector
Yeah, I know this is disappointing for a global sporting event, but I'm
surprised experienced journos have not experienced stuff like this in other
developing countries (e.g. India).

~~~
eropple
Most of the journalists that I've been seeing this stuff from are sports
journalists. Very heavily biased towards the United States and Canada.

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Oculus
I knew corruption surrounding the games was bad, but I didn't know it was this
bad. What happens if they're not prepared? Do they just go "Sorry, no xyz
sport because the venue isn't ready"?

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xentronium
Hopefully, all the olympic venues are ready.

Still, underdelivery and enormous costs of these olympics (~$20-50bn figures
depending on what to include in olympic costs) are horrifying for us Russians
even more than yellow rusty water is for europeans and americans.

If past experience is any indicator, whatever is built for the Games will
decay and rot within months after the event.

~~~
kubiiii
In France, since the Albertville olympic games (1992), the local ski venues
are much more accessible (thanks to tunnels), and you still can use the
bobsleigh track. So it really depends if the infrastructures were thought only
for the olympic games or with a broader view.

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bane
I haven't been to Russia since the 90s, but this sounds pretty par for the
course for back then: undrinkable water, crumbling new construction, Stray
dogs,etc. I'm a bit surprised it's still that bad. It's a shame since it's a
beautiful country with some really warm people.

Also, really surprised seasoned journalists have never been to a country where
you can't flush the toilet paper?

