Interfax: Russian president’s spokesman says proud of Sochi Olympic infrastructure

(Interfax – Moscow, February 10, 2014) The scandals and nerve-wrecking events surrounding the Olympics have faded into the background, replaced with pride for the facilities constructed, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitriy Peskov has said.

“This is an utterly extraordinary event. I am looking at what is happening and a sense of pride overtakes me. And all the nerve-wrecking things, all the scandals – it seems like they are all fading away into the background,” Peskov said in an interview with the [liberal] radio station Kommersant FM.

“We were here a month ago and there was a lot of dust hanging in the air in the Imeretinskaya lowland, and only now have I realized that Putin understood this from the very beginning: to hell with it – with the dust – the rain will wash it off in a year while all this will stay here for many decades for our country,” Peskov said.

Peskov said he was sure that more and more people would understand that.

“I saw them start with a! swamp in the Imeretinskaya lowland, in the same place where the stadiums and the Formula 1 tracks are standing now, where the hotels are and so on. I saw impassable dirt in the mountain cluster when all that was there were two shoddy houses. Frankly speaking, no-one believed that this would happen, it was so difficult,” Peskov said.

At the same time, he stressed that the future of the Olympic facilities would depend on their effective management by the government and their owners.

“On the one hand, the Olympics may help. On the other hand, the games could have no effect. Everything will depend on successful management, both at the government level and at the level of the owners,” Peskov said.

He added that the first several years after the Olympics would be difficult in terms of profitability, which means for Sochi it is “very important to tough it out, to stand strong”.

“For private sector investors, it will be very hard to get their money back [in! itially], but I am sure that after some time we will see global-level competitive prices here,” Peskov said.