The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is content with the construction of the Olympic venues in Russia. The committee's experts arrived in Sochi once again. However, this time, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin decided against visiting the "southern capital" and instead held a video conference with the committee from the government's situation centre.
However, no efforts at convincing were required. The experts gave generous praise to the progress and especially the pace of construction.
"We are amazed at what we have seen", IOC member Jean-Claude Killy said. "It is a striking progress and the committee is very pleased with the course of the construction." He added that he had spoken to the workers at the sites and they assured him that the construction will be a non-stop process.
"It has left a deep impression on us", he kept saying, although earlier he had been sceptical about the whole project.
Olympic Games Executive Director Gilbert Felli, along with Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, Sochi Mayor Anatoly Pakhomov, Olympstroi head Taymuraz Bolloyev and head of the Sochi-2014 Organising Committee Dmitry Chernyshenko, joined Killy for the video conference.
Putin was pleased with Killi's words and assured the delegates that the Olympic construction project will be a tremendous success. The prime minister supported his claims with impressive figures.
Around 60 billion roubles will be allocated for the Olympic venues this year. The construction will be 50% funded from the state budget and 50% sponsored by private investors.
"We are discharging the planned financial resources in full and there are no delays", the government head said.
According to the information at his disposal, at present 153 sites are at the designing stage, and the construction and installation works started at 43 venues. He noted that the Roza Khutor alpine ski resort will start operating this year, as well as a new seaport and two major electric power stations to supply energy to the complex.
As many as 16,000 people and 2,500 machines are involved in the construction in Sochi. It is obvious that a huge job will be done, Killy said, adding, "But the design of the Olympic venues and their progress is proceeding just as promised". He visited 30 venues where construction works proceed round the clock.
Along with Olympic construction, the experts were pleased with the environmental efforts made by Russian officials.
This is true, Putin replied, underscoring that the conservation of Sochi's ecology is one of the government's top priorities.
"Our objective is not only to preserve the environment, but to restore what was lost because of human economic activity", he said, reminding that the Sochi natural reserve is implementing a programme to restore the population of snow leopards in the North Caucasus.
"We have reached an agreement with our Iranian colleagues and hope to receive some animals from Iran to bring this programme through", Putin said.
In his words, many Caucasian republics' state symbols feature leopards while their population in the area is scarce today.
Nikolai Penkovsky, director of the Sochi National Park, said two local leopards will "get married" in May to two "brides" caught in Iran.
Pyotr Skobelev