Sochi's dark side

In this photo taken on Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2013, a woman washes up dishes in her kitchen in the yard of a house in the village of Vesyoloye, outside Sochi, Russia. As the Winter Games are getting closer, many Sochi residents are complaining that their living conditions only got worse and that authorities are deaf to their grievances.(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

A man is hanging out a piece of cloth to dry in the yard of the 5a Akatsiy house as a freight train drives past. Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP Photooto

Irina Kharchenko walks in the yard of her house beside the screen separating the yard of her house and a federal highway in the village. Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP Photo

A woman washes up dishes in her kitchen in the yard of a house in the village of Vesyoloye. Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP Photo

A new highway is seen on the fringes of the Olympic park in Sochi, Russia. Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP Photo

The emblem of the USSR hangs on the door of the outhouse in the yard of the railroad house in the village of Vesyoloye. Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP Photo

A submarine from an amusement arcade on the beach in central Sochi, Russia. Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP Photo

Alexandra Krivchenko, left, Nadezhda Kurovskaya, center, Irina Kharchenko, right, residents of 5a Akatsiy street drink tea in the village of Vesyoloye outside Sochi. Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP Photo

The residents of 5a Akatsy Street have lived for years with no running water or sewage system, while building work for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games has made their lives even more miserable.

A new motorway cuts them off from the city centre and even their communal outhouse was torn down because it was too close to the new road and therefore an eyesore.

The slum is part of a hidden dark side in the host city for the Winter Games, which stands side by side with the glittering new construction projects hailed by the president, Vladimir Putin, as a symbol of Russia’s transformation from a dysfunctional Soviet leviathan to a successful, modern economy.

Yet away from the luxury malls, sleek stadiums and high-speed trains, thousands of ordinary people in the Sochi area live with squalor and environmental waste: villagers living next to an illegal dump filled with Olympic construction waste; families whose homes are sinking into the earth; city dwellers suffering chronic power cuts despite promises to improve electricity.

The Games, which begin next month, were promoted as a unique opportunity to bring investment to the Black Sea resort and improve living standards for its 350,000 residents.

Looking back at those promises, many residents, weary from years of living in the midst of Russia’s biggest construction project in modern history, say they have yet to see any improvement in their lives.

“Everyone was looking forward to the Olympics,” says Alexandra Krivchenko, a 37-year-old mother of three who lives on Akatsy Street. “We just never thought they would leave us bang in the middle of a federal motorway.”

Elsewhere in Sochi and surrounding villages, people have seen the quality of their life decline because of Olympic construction. In the village of Akhshtyr, residents complain about an illegal landfill operated by an Olympics contractor that fouled the air and a stream that feeds the water supply.

In the village of Mirny, just outside the Olympic Park, rumbling lorries have damaged foundations and caused homes to subside. Sochi residents also complain about widespread environmental damage, including the destruction of forests and the contamination of a river running down to the sea.

Near the Olympic Park, a popular sandy beach was paved over for the development of a port that was never built.

The Winter Games are intended to showcase Russia’s resurgence from the collapse of the Soviet Union two decades ago. From drab sanatoriums to gleaming ski resorts. From outdoor markets with counterfeit clothes to boutiques filled with international brands. When the mayor of Sochi was asked last year what had changed for the better, Anatoly Pakhomov talked about a new shopping mall and a Louis Vuitton store.

Amid such pride in status symbols, Sochi has fallen well short in providing basic necessities, residents say.

Two giant power stations have been commissioned to provide electricity for the Olympic venues and the city, but power shortages across the city are still common. Russia’s energy minister says the grid is still being built and is unlikely to come online before Saturday, less than two weeks before the opening ceremonies.

Thousands of people whose homes were demolished to make way for Olympic construction have been relocated, but many others are still waiting for new homes. Meanwhile, even as investment has poured into Olympic facilities, Sochi’s slum dwellings remain standing. The city government says that more than 100 apartment buildings and private homes have been classified as uninhabitable.

For many residents, the Sochi they live in bears little resemblance to the city they see on national television.

“It’s a parallel universe that locals, to a great extent, have no access to,” said Olga Beskova, editor of the local website Sochinskiye Novosti, or Sochi News.

“It has very little to do with how Sochi lives every day. So far, city streets are all dug up, residents have a lot of problems, and it’s hard to see a happy ending after all of this construction.”

The people on Akatsy Street have petitioned for decades to get the government to classify the 1941 barrack-like building as uninhabitable and provide them with new housing. They put up a red “SOS!” sign in a desperate effort to call attention to their plight.

While the city authorities insist that the government roads management agency is responsible for relocating them; the road agency shifts responsibility back to the town hall.

The Akatsy house, in the village of Vesyoloye, is about three kilometres from the Olympic Park, where the arenas and main stadium are located. Like thousands of private houses in Sochi, the property is not connected to city water or sewage systems, with residents making do by drilling wells and building outhouses.

Adding humiliation to hardship, the roads agency secured a court ruling ordering them to pull down their common outhouse, which stood on the edge of the new motorway. Ms Krivchenko’s neighbour, Irina Kharchenko, whose family is seeking justice for 5a Akatsy in court, said the judge told them to “get yourselves a bio toilet”.

Across railway tracks is another barracks-type house with no indoor plumbing, where 56-year-old Vladimir Zarytovsky has been living for 43 years. Since a road for the Olympics was built nearby, the house and garden have become prone to flooding.

“You have to put on rubber boots if you want to go to the toilet,” Mr Zarytovsky said, pointing to foot-high water marks on the walls of the wooden outhouse and outdoor kitchen.

His 29-year-old son, Igor, lives elsewhere with his wife and two children, but said he still loves the crumbling house where he grew up.

What he resents is what he describes as the lies on Russian state television.

“I watch Channel One and get the feeling that I am living in paradise,” he said.

“It’s disgusting to hear the governor and the mayor singing songs to Putin, telling him that everything is fabulous.”

* Natakiya Vasilyeva, Associated Press