Vanished in the Haze: White Elephants, Environmental Degradation and Circassian Marginalization in Post-Olympics Sochi

Abstract

This chapter focuses on three areas that before the Sochi Olympics were often discussed as holding particularly acute problems. The first is related to infrastructural investments in the region and the risk of them being turned into so-called white elephants, costing a lot of money and being of no actual use, neither by the local population nor by tourists. The second theme regards the feared environmental degradation due to the organization of the mega event and the extent to which the prognosticated problems have come to materialize. The third, which enjoyed substantial attention before the Olympics, deals with the indigenous Circassian population and the extent to which its members were maltreated, marginalized and squeezed out from the geographical area which constitutes their homeland. The basic reason for bringing up the three subjects in the chapter is the same: to argue the need for continued attention to perceived trouble-spots even after the close of the Games.