Winter Olympics: Sochi

Winter Olympics 2014
Sochi-Russia
It would seem that President Vladimir Putin has spared nothing in his desire to host the Winter Olympic Games this year, which will be held in Sochi, south-west Russia. The venues and hotels came to a total of £31 billion, but many journalists and reporters say that there is still room for improvements, with poor quality accommodation and underlying cracks in the glimmering surface of Sochi. Nonetheless Putin hopes that what the venues appear to be; and what happens inside them, is what Russia will be remembered for. With venues costing up to $8.6bn, this Winter Olympic Games will be the most expensive the world has laid eyes upon. In the areas where Russia lacks talent it has appears to have bought it with numerous athletes from other countries recently becoming Russian citizens ready and keen to compete for Russia this Olympics, surprise surprise.
If that wasn’t enough, the security element has also been highlighted with massive speculation on what is allowed to be brought into Russia. The ETRC (Russian Ministry of Transport) has clarified that passengers are prevented from carrying any liquids in their hand luggage other than personal medicines and baby food. However, passengers will have to prove they really need the medication during the flight, and security has authority to check even baby food. So this means that all liquids, regardless of volume, have a ban and cannot be found in carry-on luggage ahead and during the Olympic Games. These bans are in response to growing Intelligence on terrorist threats and will last until the end of the Winter Olympics this year. However, duty free goods can still be purchased at departure airports and brought into Russia without being confiscated.
Putin said to Team Russia, “We are all counting on you,” which shows just how much pressure is on Russia to achieve this year, maybe: in the now historical words of Lord Kitchener, it should be ‘YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU’!!