Thursday, February 06, 2014

Well- That's Something I Didn't Expect...

At the Olympic Coastal Cluster everything is completely built from scratch. There was virtually nothing on the site where the Fisht, the Iceberg, the Adler Arena, the Bolshoy and the Shayba are now.

Virtually nothing... Because one little section has not been touched.

2005 Aerial


March 2013 Aerial - See the tiny forest?


December 2013 - Much easier to see now with the ring of tall trees around it.

It is a cemetery- almost 100 years old, filled with Old Believers from a purist sect of the Orthodox church in Russia. No one really knows how many people are buried there because of incomplete records.
Many of the Old Believers fled Russia centuries ago, scattering around the globe. Invited back by Czar Nicolas II in 1911, hundreds resettled on this edge of the Black Sea.
Families of those buried here have been able to visit during construction, and the actual site will be open to the public during the Games...
It will be quite a reminder of the thousands of people that were relocated from their homes to build the Olympic Park, quite a contentious issue for the Sochi Olympics... I think it is quite an interesting facet of the ongoing saga that is the Sochi Olympic Games.


I shot this over the fence one evening.
Note the Fisht Arena in the background...
It is the one place I will definitely make an effort to go see when the gates are open.
(Yes, I know. I'm morbid and creepifying.)


TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

5 comments:

Jennifer said...

Interesting. I would have to check that out if I were there.

kx59 said...

Speaking of not being there, the nooz says almost no foreign spectators can be found in Sochi. The nooz says all the foreigners are press, athletes, trainers or volunteers and rumor of one ogre lurking around.
It sounds like Putin built it and no one came.

Old NFO said...

Interesting is right...

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

The graveyard is what makes this Olympics so Russian, and what I like about outside cultures. I'd bring drawing paper, and charcoal to do a rub of any cool stones