Putin on Sochi: I would very much like sports not to be marred by politics
President Vladimir Putin has reassured a group of international journalists that athletes and spectators would have no problems at the Sochi Olympics in a discussion dominated by questions on Russia’s “gay propaganda” law and security.
While visiting Sochi ahead of the Winter Games, the Russian president shared his vision of the coming Olympics with journalists from America’s ABC News, Britain’s BBC, China’s CCTV, and the IOC’s own Around the Rings agency, as well as with Russia’s Channel One and Rossiya-1 TV channels.
“None of the guests of the Sochi Olympics will have any
problems,” Putin said.
Despite Putin saying that the Olympics were meant to
“depoliticize the most pressing international issues,”
the majority of questions he had to answer dealt with politics,
with much of the interview time being devoted to dispelling fears
that LGBT visitors to Sochi would face any discrimination. Putin
reiterated that LGBT community representatives were absolutely
welcome in Russia.
‘World of difference’
Putin said the critics of Russia’s recently passed law on banning
propaganda of “non-standard sexual orientation” aimed at minors,
should read better into the wording of the bill’s text to find
out a “world of difference” between what is said there
and infringement on the rights of gay people.
“It seems to me that the bill we adopted does not hurt
anybody. Moreover, people of non-traditional sexual orientation
cannot feel like inferior people here, because there is no
professional, career or social discrimination against them, by
the way.”
Putin said he was perplexed by the fact that while homosexuality
was a criminal offense in 70 countries around the world, Russia,
where it was not, there were attempts to give Russia the
reputation as the most anti-gay country on the planet.
“Homosexuality is a criminal offense in 70 countries… It is
still a criminal offense in some states of the United States, for
instance in Texas, and may be in other three states,” Putin
said. “Why does nobody speak about this and why do they speak
about us, though we do not have criminal liability for this?"
"What is this, if not an attempt to restrain? This is a remnant of the previous, old way of thinking and this is bad.”
As for the Russian Orthodox Church’s calls for reintroducing criminal liability for homosexuality, Putin said that the state was separated from the church and had a different approach to the issue.
“People have different sexual orientation. We would welcome all athletes and all guests at the Olympics,” he said. “I would very much like sports not to be marred by politics.”
Round-the-clock security headquarters
In the wake of the two terrorist attacks that rocked Russia’s
southern city of Volgograd in December, resulting in 34 deaths,
the issue of ensuring security for the Winter Olympics has become
particularly acute.
A total of 40,000 law enforcement and security personnel will be
employed in the Sochi area for the task, Putin said. He added the
country already had successful experience in providing security
for big international events it recently hosted, such as the G20
and G8 summits.
During the Winter Olympics, Russia’s security forces will
cooperate with their foreign counterparts, Putin said.
“We have permanent round-the-clock headquarters maintaining
contact with colleagues from the foreign countries’ corresponding
services and army units. By the way, these colleagues are
represented in the headquarters, there is, I repeat, a direct
professional interaction.”
The president would not go into much detail as to what security
measures exactly would be like, but promised they would not be as
conspicuous as Patriot missile launchers on the roofs of houses,
as happened during the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.
“We will try to make sure that security measures do not seem
an imposition, are not too conspicuous and do not put pressure on
the athletes taking part in the Olympic Games and the guests and
journalists present there,” Putin said. “But at the same time we
will do our best to make these measures effective.”
The Russian president said the country’s security agencies knew
well “what the threat is” and “how to stop it,” but said it would
be unwise to underestimate the seriousness of the situation.
“But the world is what it is,” Putin said. “We remember well
the tragic events during the Olympic Games in Munich [1972], when
the Israeli sports delegation was killed almost in its entirety.
And of course, since that time all countries in the world without
exception make special, extraordinary security efforts.”
How much are the Olympics?
Vladimir Putin said the overall cost of the Olympics was 214 billion rubles ($6.5 billion), dismissing the allegations it was close to 10 times bigger. More than half the money spent was private capital, the president explained.
He also rejected claims that billions of dollars were plundered
during the preparations for the Olympics. Those were earlier in
January voiced by International Olympic Committee (IOC) member
Gian-Franco Kasper.
Putin admitted there were some minor corruption scandals several
years ago, connected to the construction.
“There were cases, I have already said about it, some years
ago local officials tried to trade land designated for Olympics
venues. An investigation was conducted; people were convicted by
the Russian court and are serving the sentence,” he said,
while adding he knew nothing of large-scale instances of
corruption and calling on those who speak about them to support
their allegations by evidence.
Problems with missed deadlines and construction work
bigger-than-expected price-tag were, according to Putin, natural
at “the largest construction site in the world,” which
Sochi has been for the last several years. Some of the sporting
venues created are the best in the world, he said.
The president stressed that he wanted the benefits reaped from
the investment into the region to go far beyond merely the
profits from the Games themselves.
“The first and the most important [goal] was to develop the
south of the country, and primarily its infrastructure,” he
said. “And to my mind we have made real progress here, since
a completely new transport, energy and environment infrastructure
has been set up.”
With 40,000 newly built hotel rooms, as well as with the new
roads and utilities, the Sochi region could, according to the
president, finally become a viable alternative to the Turkish
resorts that millions of Russian tourists have in the last few
years preferred to their own country’s Black Sea cost.
Putin expects the Winter Games to pay out not only in terms of
economics. The president believes the Olympics are a good chance
to “strengthen the morale of the nation” as well as to
improve the attitude toward Russia abroad, erasing some old
stereotypes.
“I would like the participants, guests, journalists and all
those who watch the Games on TV and learn about them from the
mass media to see a new Russia, see its personality and its
possibilities, take a fresh and unbiased look at the country. And
I am sure that this will happen, it has to bring about good and
positive results and it will help Russia to establish relations
with its partners around the world.”
