Paul
Goble
Staunton, June 26 – Many “natural”
disasters are in fact man-made, the direct result of thoughtless, irresponsible
or even criminal actions by specific individuals and organizations. The disastrous flooding of Sochi this week is
one of those: it is the result of the actions Vladimir Putin took in
preparation for the 2014 Winter Olympiad in that North Caucasus city.
Already, more than 500 homes have
been flooded there, hundreds of people have had to flee, one person has died,
the airport and railroad station have been closed, and the flooding has not yet
receded. Russian officials blame the rain for overwhelming the storm sewers,
but experts and local people say that those who built the Olympiad are to
blame.
They point out that officials were
repeatedly warned that the city’s infrastructure was being overlooked in the
rush to complete preparations for the Games, that money that was supposed to be
spend on basic facilities like sewers and water pipes was corruptly diverted,
and that what has happened this week will happen again unless something is
done.
These complaints, and the attention
this disaster is receiving in the Russian media, are likely to reopen the
questions the late Boris Nemtsov raised about the corruption and malfeasance in
Putin’s quest to host the games and mean that yet again, an event he presented
as a Russian triumph will become instead yet another example of Kremlin
mismanagement.
Anatoly Baranov, the editor of
Forum-MSK.org, put it bluntly: “The extent of the disaster is overwhelming but
not surprising. On the eve of the Olympiad, we wrote that Sochi and its region
are zones of heightened risk.” But Putin was presented as all-knowing, the
Games “finished in triumphant fashion.” Now, the Kremlin isn’t interested in
Sochi. “Its historic mission is fulfilled … it can drown” (forum-msk.org/material/news/10883032.html).
Another Moscow writer, Nikolay
Ivanov, documents the warnings delivered to both Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir
Putin, how these were ignored, and many cases in which those preparing for the
Sochi Games diverted funds intended for infrastructure into their own pockets
or the pockets of those above them (forum-msk.org/material/kompromat/10883322.html).
Now, he says, the people of Sochi
are paying the price for Putin’s neglect, corruption and malfeasance; and he
strongly implies that what is happening in Sochi represents a warning to
everyone and will inevitably happen elsewhere unless the Kremlin stops shortchanging
the Russian people in its own quest for public relations triumphs.
Officials are declaring their
personal innocence and seeking to blame others. The governor of Krasnodar kray
suggested yesterday that the city had failed to maintain the infrastructure,
but the Sochi mayor responded that he and his administration had done
everything by the book (kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/264598/).
But
local people are having none of this. Aleksandr Valov, the chief editor of
BlogSochi, says that poor storm sewers is only one of the reasons for the
massive flooding and that those who changed the landscape in advance of the
Olympiad bear chief responsibility because they changed the paths water could
flow down from the mountains.
And
like others, Valov notes that he and his fellow activists repeatedly told
officials that “the construction of Olympic 2014 sites was carried out with
crude violations” of the law, that natural water flows were being blocked, and
that inevitably such blockages would lead to flooding.
Nemtsov made use of Valov’s
reporting in his own massive indictment of Putin’s malfeasance and corruption
in advance of Sochi. Perhaps now that the consequences of what Putin did have
become more obvious, more people will attend to what the people of Sochi and
the murdered Russian politician have said and realize that Sochi was not the success the Kremlin leader claimed.
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