Just as any grand event, the Sochi Olympics will soon be over and Russia will remain with itself. Its prospects are uncertain since the economic growth has dropped and the Kremlin’s policy has shifted toward social conservatism.
Though Sochi is located in the Caucasus, the planners of the Sochi Olympics failed to give the games any Caucasian flavor. It looks as though the North Caucasians have been factored into the planning of the games only in so far as they present a security headache.
The aggravation of the human rights situation in today’s Russia is impossible to deny. What makes things worse is that in Russia the political power is above the law.
The Sochi Olympics turned out to be a trap for Vladimir Putin. Instead of being a symbol of his glorious leadership, Sochi is becoming a symbol of corruption and instability.
The Sochi Games have put Russia under scrutiny of the world media. Eurasia Outlook has asked its contributors to look at different aspects of the current Russian reality through the prism of Sochi.
The anti-gay campaign may have helped the Kremlin to pit the conservative majority against the excessively modernized trouble-makers. But the wave of negative publicity this campaign is generating has taken a heavy toll on the image of Russia in general, and the Sochi Olympics in particular.
The Sochi Olympics are more politicized than any other Games in recent history. A number of world leaders have announced that they would not attend the Games. However, the Kremlin uses foreign criticism as proof of the West's perennial desire to hold Russia back, and keep it weak.
Probably for the first time in the history of the Olympics, sports-related issues concerning the Games took a back seat to the issues of security. Keeping the Sochi Olympics safe is a matter of Russia’s political prestige, as well as the evidence of its ability to respond to terrorism.
