Our hot Olympic days
February 14, 2014
Oleg Deripaska:
I’m proud of the impact companies of Basic Element have made to the success of the Olympic Games in Sochi, for the victory of our athletes, bright emotions and unforgettable impressions of the city’s guests and all Sochi residents.
All the projects built, revamped and operated by Basic Element’s subsidiaries are successfully dealing with Olympic overloads. Among them are Sochi International Airport, main Olympic village, Imeretinsky Sea port and a route alternate to Sochi’s main thoroughfare, Kurortny Avenue. Let me focus on each project.
Sochi International Airport, operated by Basel Aero, is the main gateway of the Olympics which has been operating in the Olympic mode since January. During the peak arrivals on February 6-9 the airport served over 47,000 passengers and 1,100 flights, a 60-year record of the airport’s operations. There were neither delays nor flight cancellations during the busiest days. The Games organizers as well as U.S., Canadian and Austrian Olympic Committees have praised the airport’s staff for well-coordinated work.
Every day I see how the athletes living in the main Olympic village upload gigabytes of photos and videos to social networks. What makes me really happy is their positive feedback about the quality of Olympic Village. IOC President Thomas Bach, for example, expressed a desire to live in our village but not in the apartments tailored for him. The mayor of the coastal Olympic village, a twice Olympic champion Elena Isinbayeva said: “Everybody says that our Olympic village is the best in Olympic history” World-renowned Russian hockey players Alexander Ovechkin, Evgeny Malkin, Semyon Varlamov as well as their foreign colleagues have hailed the village.
“We have amazing rooms in the Athletes’ Village. We have a three-bedroom apartment, and it’s beautiful… We couldn’t ask for a better first Olympic experience,” said Canadian curler Jennifer Jones. “I always smile while hanging around Olympic village,” Sandis Ozolinsh, a Latvian hockey player said.
Imeretinsky Sea port now harbors three huge liners serving as floating hotels. The port’s team has also successfully managed the facility, making the stay in the Black Sea waters an unforgettable experience.
A route alternate to Sochi’s main thoroughfare Kurortny Avenue was launched shortly before the start of the Olympics and has already significantly relieved Sochi roads. President Vladimir Putin called the road “our common pride” and said that he was “impressed” by the scale of the construction.
It’s not a secret that our athletes bear responsibility for the success of the Games. I support our team and wish Russia won as many medals as possible.
Though the Olympic Games is an important event, we must start working even harder to turn Krasnodar region into Russian tourism capital and centre of hospitality that would attract people from all over Russia after the Games. Government, business community, investors as well as people working in this area need to make not only financial contribution to the region’s development but also invest their knowledge and professional expertise.
