From Scot Bathgate: Just weeks after Olympics, Sochi is already a ghost town
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Alexander Valov, who runs “Blog Sochi,” captured photos that depict a desolate Sochi, with infrastructure already breaking down and some construction never completed.
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Some construction remains undone to this day:
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In Vancouver, three months after the Olympics:
http://marthapfeil.com
Sustainable Architecture
http://www.saaarchitects.com.sg/
Well, the ghost town label did hang around OV for quite a while. I remember cycling through past a film crew and joking about that very thing: “are you filming a ghost story”?
Photo above of OV doesn’t look like a ghost town. What are you on about?
I strongly suspect those pictures were taken during one of the open house / marketing blitzes for the Olympic Village. I attended one of them and it was packed. But it wasn’t representative of a typical day in the village at that time.
That having been said, with occupancy rates up and the retailers now open the place has come a long way and I have no doubt that it’s far more lively than Sochi will be 4 years from now.
Not that I have any faith there’s a Russian Rennie ready to fill their place with chains and life, however..
And the Olympic Streetcar line was abandoned despite carrying 550,000 for two months-only cost $18 million to buy and re-build. No waste there, eh?
It was a pilot project with Bombardier, never intended to be permanent. Bombardier funded to have the rolling stock installed and removed.
The condos at the Olympic Village WERE empty for many months after the Games – they had to be converted by removing walls, etc.
This is just another typical “they suck” “we’re great” puff piece.
Wrong. Its a piece showing how one city/authority planned for a future use and the other didn’t. Removing walls is a small program shift from athlete hostel to condo, the urban form, provision for amenity, services and transport/land-use integration was conceived from day one for OV.
Well said.
Those articles are from 2011.
Which is the relevant time period we are discussing vis-a-vis Sochi.
Sochi is a Whistler like location with mountains, golf courses and sea close by. Of course Russia’s annexation of Crimea and international boycott of G8 planned for there is not great destination marketing .. But Russia has money and with a declining ruble instead of trips to London or Dubai Sochi will get more local business.
Canmore too was a ghost town in the late 80’s / early 90’s after the Calgary Olympics was over and has then, over perhaps a 10-15 year period developed into a major golf, ski & resort town with prices well above Calgary’s .. So this will likely happen in Sochi too .. In time.
There are 343,334 people permanently living in Sochi. How you can compare a large city to Whistler (9,824 pop.) and Canmore (12,288 pop.) is beyond me. Thomas, you once again seem to be missing the point with your sweeping generalizations, as Scott said above, the difference between the two is the master plan for the uses afterwards.
It tells me that a ghost town in a city of over 300,000 will not develop if even small towns like Whistler or Canmore have developed. Who cares about a master plan, people will rent or buy, in time. Not everything has to be planned. Things will progress naturally, and an empty Olympic Village, like Vancouver’s, hastily and sloppily constructed with major deficiencies, will in time be full of life. That also will happen in Sochi even if there are a few potholes here and there.
I do not generalize .. I pontificate and opine. Isn’t this the purpose of a blog ?
Who cares about a master plan? Your on the wrong blog to make comments like that. Urban design is about vision and program.
Only comments uncritical of anyone allowed here ? No discenting opinion ? Pacing of absorption and people movement can only be planned to a degree . People are smart enough to make their own decisions, especially when it has to do with their own money. We need less government, not more. Sochi’s Olympic village will fill, in time. Check back on VRBO or hotels.com in a year or three. It’ll thrive, just like Canmore, Whistler or the Vancouver Olympic Village did.
Agreed.
The oligarchs must all be vacationing in Crimea !