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

In this chapter, we will turn our attention to three areas that before the Sochi Olympics were often discussed as particularly acute problems in relation to the Olympics. The first one of these is related to infrastructural investments in the area 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 to the region. 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. These two are matters that in one shape or another seem to be brought up in relation to all Olympics in contemporary times, possibly with the exception of the Lillehammer Olympics of 1994. The third theme, which enjoyed substantial attention before the Olympics, is however specially related to the Sochi Olympics. It 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. Despite their seeming disparity, 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