Sochi

June 8–10, 2007

An airport bus with a sign saying “Life in LAND” comes to fetch us from the plane.

I was hoping to see the new airport building, but it turned out that it isn’t open yet, although they’ve already hosted an Olympic committee delegation, complete with Potemkin queues at the check-in counters. I had to settle for the old building.

Airport lounges

The old building is a total disgrace. The only good thing about it is the sign they forgot to demolish, which nowadays can be considered a museum piece.

I came here two years ago without a photo camera. Having said that, even if I had brought it, the only thing I would’ve brought back photos of is booze. This time the booze was put on hold, which took a lot of willpower. However, it turns out Sochi’s urban planning does not allow for people partaking in any outdoor leisure activities whatsoever.

The whole city is made up of self- contained and sealed off spaces, large and small. They’re either private hotels or Soviet-era resorts. Everything is self- contained, so you can drive from where you’re staying to the arboretum and back. There’s nowhere to turn off the road and nothing to look at.

“Art belongs to the people” V. I. Lenin

The resort order, which has persisted since Soviet times, governs all life in Sochi: people come here to spend a week sitting in one spot. That’s it.

More pointless real estate, advertised in high doses. The taxi driver gushed about how one of his passengers, an oil magnate, bought an apartment with a sea view for two million dollars. He didn’t get a whole house for that price, just an apartment in a ten-storey building.

For road users’ viewing pleasure: the creative handiwork of the local road police — an extra-readable billboard “speed limit 90km/hour” with a turtle in the background. The text is impossible to read at any speed.

The traffic signs are equipped with LEDs in the vain hope of making them more noticeable at nighttime. The effect is the same as in Egypt or Surgut — you can’t make anything out, all they do is irritate.

It’s unbelievable: drivers in Sochi stop when they see a pedestrian on a pedestrian crossing. I’m wondering whether there’s any other city in Russia where this is possible, one-off exceptions aside?

The names of bus stops are positioned in such a way that only people driving convertible “Ferraris” can see them.

All traffic lights in Sochi are also designed for their benefit — roughly the height of a human being.

In a word, Sochi isn’t a bolt out of the blue. Although, come to think of it...

* * *

I flew back on “Siberia”. It’s the first time I’ve come across a pilot on a Russian airline who is an actual human being. His name is Taras Shevchenko, like the Ukrainian poet (he introduces himself as Shevchenko, Taras to avoid passengers laughing at him). Following in the finest Western traditions he welcomed all passengers “aboard our little green Boeing” and informed us about the goings-on at the airport, the weather, the cities we’d be flying over, and so on. It’s just a detail, but it’s nice all the same.