Ten years ago, the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games took place in Sochi. The Sport correspondent recalls three weeks filled with happiness that remained with him for the rest of his life.
«I am Tarasova!»
All these ten years, I periodically returned in my thoughts to the question — why did the Sochi Olympics remain in my memory as perhaps the main event in my life? You fly up to the airport in Adler, see the Olympic facilities on the right side, board the Aeroexpress, arrive at the hyper-modern station “Imeretinsky Resort — Olympic Park”, go out to the main square with a torch — and inside there is an indescribable feeling of pride that you have witnessed something… that miracle that will never happen to you…
But one day it seemed to me that I understood the secret of the success of the Olympics in Sochi. And its roots are in an event that occurred 34 years before February 2014. Of course, I mean the Moscow Olympics, which remained in the memory of those people who prepared the Sochi Games. I have it in the form of delicious sliced sausage, juice bags, Fanta. Well, at six years old this is forgivable. For some it’s different. But everyone, without exception, wanted Mishka to fly into the Moscow July sky not forever — and the Olympic magic returned.
Maybe this is an overly romanticized version. After all, the pragmatic option also has a right to exist. Of course, those who came up with this Olympics wanted to pull Sochi out of the last century, where it was stuck with its dilapidated Soviet-built sanatoriums and a complete lack of any service, turn it into a world-class resort and bring money to the treasury, making money from tourists, successfully competing both in summer with Turkey and in winter with the Alps. The Olympics are held, among other things, for the sake of a unique heritage that radically changes people's lives.
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We should not forget that the people of Sochi had to suffer for this legacy. For several years the city was stuck in traffic jams that even Muscovites could not imagine. It would be nice if the reason was only construction — no one canceled the closures on the occasion of the visits of various important persons. I remember how Tatyana Anatolyevna Tarasova personally made a way for a bus with skaters that was tightly stuck in such a traffic jam during one of the pre-Olympic championships in Russia. «I am Tarasova!» — she shouted to the traffic cops blocking the road, and they gave in to her pressure…
It is no secret that during the creation of the infrastructure of the Games, private houses were demolished, which were unlucky enough to be on the territory required for development for the facilities. People were provided with modern housing in new settlements built nearby, with an infrastructure of a completely different level, and the monetary compensation, as local residents told me, was enough for both cars and a financial “safety cushion”.
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I didn’t go to the opening ceremony of the Sochi Games 10 years ago. There weren’t enough tickets for all the correspondents working for the agency, and I, since I was present at the main ceremony of the Olympics in London two years before, recused myself — so that those who had not had such a chance before and it’s not a fact that would have gotten into the stadium further. Instead, I went to the nearby village of State Farm Russia, which was then like an island of freedom from the Olympic fever. But still, the Olympics captured him too — the broadcast of the ceremony was watched in every tent. The locals accepted these Games with love.
«Why should they be ashamed of someone's deception?»
And as for the memory of our ancestors — after all, she was saved where, in fact, it was impossible to do so. Until now, not all guests of the Olympic Park know what is hidden behind the ring of fir trees literally a hundred meters from the main square. But this may be the most touching story of the entire preparation for the Olympics. There, behind the fir trees, is a tiny old Old Believer cemetery. The designers and builders did not dare to put it under the bulldozer — and in the end the churchyard was preserved. If you purposefully walk around it in a circle, you can find the entrance, and standing on one of the benches placed along the perimeter, you will see that all the graves are safe and sound.
During the Olympics itself, nothing was said about this amazing object, and even now you can’t find information about it in the booklets dedicated to the Olympic Park. In my opinion, it’s completely in vain. After all, this cemetery, preserved despite numerous examples of cutting down the past to the roots, is clear evidence that the Games in Sochi were prepared with soul. With a real Russian soul.
Now this will probably sound strange, but ten years ago foreigners also got to know the real Russian soul during the Olympics. I remember very well how in the evenings, in the smoking areas scattered throughout the media facilities, guests from abroad drank our national drinks and danced to the continuously blaring Russian songs.
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And in general, the world in those February days seemed to shrink to the size of the Sochi Olympic Park. Just as at the Games in other countries they always opened the “Russian House”, so in Imeretinka they opened the “American House”, “Canadian House”, “Swiss House” and so on. You could go into each one completely freely — and communicate there with fans from these countries, buy symbols, exchange badges…
By the way, here is another sincere Olympic tradition that you will not find at other sporting events. I remember that for a long time I remained a skeptic about this “icon mania” — but when I finally joined the flow with everyone else, I realized how cool it was. After all, exchanging badges with someone is not just getting a small piece of hardware for your collection, but smiling at a complete stranger, exchanging a few phrases with him, and it doesn’t matter that he may not understand you because he doesn’t speak your language. This is an exchange of human warmth, which is so needed in our prickly world.
Have you noticed that in the material about the tenth anniversary of the Olympics I don’t even remember the sports part? Yes, of course, the ultra-modern arenas in Sochi were built so that the best athletes in the world could compete there. But the magic of the Olympics is precisely that what remains in your long-term memory is mainly the atmosphere, the aura of the Games. And only then — brilliant victories.
The memory of the 2014 Olympics is in the thousands of people who supported the athletes in the stands. It is in the arenas, which, unlike other Olympic capitals, are in full use. She is in the «Swallows» cruising along the sea. She’s even in that tent with the funny Products sign in Adler — people who don’t know English still sincerely wanted to help foreign guests. The 2014 Games are people who sincerely worked for the success of the Olympics and brought the life of the whole city to a completely different level.
No one will take that Olympics away from us. Three weeks of Sochi happiness are with us forever.
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