What the Imereti Lowland looked like before the Olympics. after Sochi. Imereti lowland. Sights of the Imereti lowland

When you look from afar at the domes of the stadiums of the Olympic Park in Sochi, fenced with a triple ring of fences, you quickly forget that this is a space for sports competitions and a symbol of the success of the new Russia. Broken eggshells come to mind. Now the omelet seems to have been eaten to the last crumb, and the correspondent of Radio Liberty, having visited Sochi, fully felt the aftertaste.

I arrived in Sochi on a double-decker train, this train, running along the Moscow-Adler route, was specially allowed in for the Olympic Games. It is still possible to get south on it now, and for exactly the same money as from Moscow to St. Petersburg, despite twice the distance. Coming out of a comfortable car, in which I could use the wireless Internet, albeit slowly, but still working, on the way, I did not believe that I was in Russia. On one side is the sea promenade behind a chain of palm trees. On the other is a huge, shiny station building in the shape of a wing. And in the distance behind it are snowy mountain peaks.

In a special machine, I bought a ticket for the train "Swallow" to the station "Olympic Village" for 17 rubles. A few minutes later, a silent Siemens car was taking me towards post-Olympic Sochi.

MIRNY VILLAGE - STATE FARM "RUSSIA"

I stopped in the village of Mirny, one of the suburbs of Adler on the territory of the Imeretinskaya lowland, surrounding the Olympic Park. Mirny is separated from the sea by brand new Olympic facilities, which means a dozen three-meter-high fences. Neat fences - from boards, metal mesh, barbed wire - that's the first thing that catches your eye. “The fenced land,” the locals joke. It's still early, around 9 a.m., and there's hardly any on the streets

Passers-by. Occasionally there are people who are more reminiscent of visiting workers than local residents or tourists. A couple of times I see women with strollers. In the shade of pretty wooden fences, the same throughout the village, dogs rest - it is not clear whether they are domestic or homeless. All buildings have been recently renovated, every third one was built just a year or two ago. The roofs of most houses are of the same brown-red color. On many gates there is a sign: “For sale”.

We are meeting with Viktor Kobylin, an enterprising local resident, a public representative of one of the quarters of the Mirny settlement. Viktor is a large, fair-haired man who looks more like a Siberian than a Sochi. It turns out that he was born in the Far East, studied in Omsk, and has been living here only for the last ten years.

I share with Kobylin the first quite favorable impressions.

- I agree, at least the roads were built excellent. Gas, probably, will eventually be given. They built a thermal power plant in Adler - the problems with electricity almost stopped. The village has become much cleaner, although it was greener before the construction began. It remains to remove the various black touches. The administration should end up euphoric that they have not been dispersed, and they should deal with our problems.

A watering machine drives past, washing off the dust from the asphalt path. It was impossible to imagine such a thing in the village a few years ago, and there was nothing special to wash.

Kobylin is clearly an optimist, and an active optimist. Black touches, as it turns out, abound, just some of them are hiding behind brand new fences, while others are literally buried in the ground. Even at the beginning of the Olympic construction, the village, which was preparing to receive hordes of guests of the Games, was promised sewerage and gas. Gas pipes are connected, they stick out of the ground at almost every house. But they don't have gas. “The gas workers were rushed, and as a result, the pipe was simply laid incorrectly,” explains Kobylin. - When they gave the test pressure, the pipe began to level out and float up from vibration. In some places, it is located at a depth of 20-30 centimeters from the road surface, and according to the standard it should be almost two meters deep. That's why they don't give us gas - they don't understand how it will work. Gas comes to our distribution station in the village, but does not go further, because it is simply dangerous.”

Now Kobylin expects that “smart people will figure out how to fix this,” and, hopefully, local residents will be able to heat their homes with more than wood, diesel fuel and electric heaters. By the way, it was forbidden to heat with firewood directly during the Olympic Games, so that the smoke coming from the pipes would not spoil the decent picture. But the lack of sewerage could only spoil the atmosphere: in Mirny even now there is a specific smell in places. Unlike gas pipes, sewer pipes were not laid at all.

- The initial project was prepared by an organization from Rostov, which is engaged in some kind of nanotechnology, - says Kobylin. “We wanted to make some kind of special vacuum sewerage, because we are on a lowland, below sea level. We thought for a long time, then realized that there was not enough money in the budget for this. As a result, a year ago, the project was finally closed. I don’t know what now, maybe there is a sewage system on paper, maybe it was reported somewhere that it was built. I don't even doubt that it is.

From Kobylin's point of view, the problem is not even that the promised sewage system does not exist. He is much more angry that the inhabitants of Mirny were fed with promises until the very last moment. People built big houses, hotels on 3-4 floors. It is simply impossible to serve such without a central sewer: the only reasonable alternative - a septic tank - requires careful control of the drain, which should not get detergents and toilet paper. How to achieve such accuracy from the tenants of the hotel? As a result, most owners drain dirty water directly into the drainage system; So,

Apparently, they do it in my hotel, judging by the ambergris that spreads from an open hatch right there on the corner for some reason. From the drainage runoff enters nearby lakes - wintering grounds for migratory birds - and from there to the Black Sea. In itself, such a system is not something unheard of in Russian seaside resorts, but Kobylin explains that in the Imereti Lowland, four meters below sea level, it is especially dangerous: “Drainage pipes become clogged and stop letting in groundwater. In three or four years, after a good downpour, the village of Mirny will simply sink. Of course, the management will say: they shit in the drainage, which means they themselves are to blame. And where else to shit? The alarm must be beaten now. And who will do this if everything is already over, everyone has reported and the picture from the helicopter is beautiful?”

To sound the alarm - this would be too little for the energetic Kobylin. Looking out of his own window at the street at the end of 2012, he noticed that the gas pipes had already been laid, nothing was being dug under the sewers, and at the same time they were going to lay asphalt. He realized that the Rostov vacuum nanocanalization was preparing to share the fate of many other innovative projects and remain at best a beautiful blueprint, and sent a request to the local administration. The answer came extremely cynical: there will be no sewerage for such and such reasons, but if you want, build it yourself.

To my grunting, Kobylin replies: “Why are you laughing? That's exactly what we did."

Having agreed with the owners of houses in his part of Mirny, Viktor, with the help of a former classmate at the Omsk Road Institute, made a project for a sewer network, and within a few months, “opening the horn”, in his own words, the doors of offices, received numerous approvals. As a result, during the summer and part of the fall of 2013, residents laid their own private sewer network. Planned Olympic asphalt had already been laid on top of it, and now in the right, if you look from the sea, half of Mirny, the air is much fresher than in the left.

I look at the photographs, which detail the chronicle of the construction. This photo album by Kobylin, who in some of the photographs stands in person at the bottom of a ditch with a shovel in his hands, apparently constantly carries it in his car. There really is something to be proud of. I ask how fair it is that part of the village is now in a better position. “If we had been warned earlier that there would be no sewerage, we would have agreed with the entire village, we would have built a network for everyone ourselves. Now we are ready to sell our sewerage to the administration so that they can complete it further for everyone, at the price at which it cost us - this is definitely cheaper than if they had built it themselves. But so far, no one is having such conversations with us.”

The construction cost each of the cooperators approximately 185,000 rubles. Big money, but here many, apparently, thanks to the holiday season and the wonderful climate, which allows you to harvest three crops of vegetables a year, could afford it. “Here people have the opportunity to live a little better than in many other places in Russia,” says Kobylin. “And we have a little more time to think about how we live, and how we can make this our life better.” For him, the Olympic Games mean an opportunity for change, which is worth seizing, not paying attention to incompetent government. and said at the meeting: if the Olympics had not happened, Mirny would never have become so beautiful. Outside, beautiful. Inside, this is a different question. Inside, a lot needs to be changed. And we will change, and we will start doing it from below. It must happen in our heads change, and then we will put pressure on the leadership and get what we need from them.”

Sovkhoz Rossiya is another village in the Imereti Lowland, located behind the Olympic Park, right on the seashore near the border with Abkhazia. Unlike Mirny, “Russia” has its own section of the beach, and with it its own problems.

Here we meet with local ecologist and social activist Natalya Kalinovskaya. I interrupt Natalya from talking with a man in overalls - this is a representative of a responsible economic service who came at the request of Kalinovskaya to inspect the clogged storm drains. Kalinovskaya makes him lean right towards the drainage holes, showing leaves, candy wrappers and empty plastic bottles crammed under the grate. She has a loud and energetic voice of a person who is confident in his rightness and used to defending his opinion. Clogged drains can lead to flooding - the most frightening and most likely disaster here in the lowlands. Having dealt with the water utility, Kalinovskaya jumps into the house for an impressive bundle of documents and takes me on a tour of the village. Almost everything that catches my eye is criticized: here are the gas pipes that I already know, in which there is no gas (Kalinovskaya claims that the Olympic flame also burned “from a cylinder”, although I tend to think that this is a local myth). Here are wooden poles put in place of the old reinforced concrete ones. Here

Drying cypresses, close to the trunks of which new asphalt is laid. Here are yellowing palm trees, stuck, as the ecologist explains, right into a two-meter layer of rubble and sand, which was used to fill the lowland for the construction of Olympic facilities. Judging by the story, for almost every tree, for every flower bed and piece of sidewalk, Kalinovskaya, at the head of a group of local residents, fought not for life, but for death, and sometimes this struggle ended in victory. Here, as in Mirny, at first glance it is very clean and comfortable, I can only notice shortcomings after a hint. However, I guess that it was for the sake of this first positive impression that everything was done.

We go to the central square. Around the new, but non-working fountain, teenagers with toy guns run after each other. Elderly women sit on a bench.

- Do you like the fountain? - Kalinovskaya calls them, who seems to know all the local residents without exception.
- Yes, Natasha, we just wanted to talk about him with you. We come here every single day and it doesn't work. Well, just take a look!
- And this is a gift from the governor, a singing and dancing fountain, worth eight million rubles. To turn it on - there is a special booth - lads from Krasnodar must come, we don’t have such smart ones here. Press the button and it will work. This is if a holiday, or someone important will arrive. Very nice, by the way!
“Well, we don’t fall for these boys in any way,” the women get upset.

In general, Krasnodar residents have a special relationship here: according to local ideas, not so much the distant Moscow authorities are to blame for all the troubles, but the middle link, most often at the level of the administration of the Krasnodar Territory. A mythology has developed, according to which somewhere there, in Krasnodar, the full-flowing financial Olympic Amu Darya was dispersed to irrigate the pockets of officials and businessmen, never reaching the Imeretinskaya lowland.

Upon learning that I am a journalist, the grandmothers immediately report that someone has worked on the construction of stadiums and built “two two-story and one four-story” ones at the state farm. This “someone”, of course, is from the stray, while the locals were left with only debts - people took loans from banks in order to get a hotel license for 200-300 thousand rubles, and there were much fewer guests at the Olympics than expected.

- And the season was last years? I ask.
- It's been four years now.
- Will it be this year?
Have you turned on the TV lately? They send everyone to the Crimea, but here in Sochi everything is allegedly very expensive, everything is for the rich.

Vladimir Putin said exactly the same thing during a recent direct line: “After all, you yourself said that world-class hotels were built in Sochi. This means that there will be different categories of tourists in Crimea and Sochi. In Crimea, the infrastructure is designed for people with low incomes, they will not be able to afford luxury hotels in Sochi.” The president's words fit into a stereotype, because of which many Russians did not even seriously consider going to the home Olympics. At the same time, residents of Mirny and the Rossiya state farm convinced me that during the Olympic Games it was possible to stay here without any problems for a rather modest amount of 500 to 1500 rubles per person per day. In the usual summer season, you can spend the night for 250.

After briefly discussing the problem of gas (grandmothers heard on TV that they would give it in the summer, but Kalinovskaya refuses to believe in it), we say goodbye and go to the embankment.

In my opinion, the word “embankment” is more in line with the city bank of the Neva or the Moskva River. I can imagine the seaside promenade in Odessa or in Nice. In the seaside state farm "Russia" you expect to see the beach. However, the beach is no longer here.

A narrow strip - five meters wide - of pebbles and stones separates the sea from a gentle concrete slope. Above is a pedestrian road with benches and lanterns, a red bike path is marked along it. There is not a single tree on all this hot stone structure even in April 22 degrees.

“And here we had a hundred-meter beach,” Kalinovskaya ironically points to the concrete hill.
- Why was this built? For beauty?
- This beauty is washed away by the sea every time. When there is a storm, everything here is covered with stones, these benches hang on those trees, and then the Ministry of Emergency Situations pumps out water in the village.
Where are people going to rest now?
- Walk along the waterfront
- And where to put umbrellas, sunbeds?
- And that's all. Walk or lie on concrete at 37 degrees in the shade.

A clean pebble beach was a competitive advantage for Rossiya, which made the village stand out among most coastal resorts. If in Sochi almost the entire coastline is divided between hotels and sanatoriums, then the Imereti coast, from the mouth of the Mzymta to the border river Psou, was famous for its public wide beach, for which many tourists stopped here, thirty kilometers from the temptations of the big city. The embankment on a concrete bulge, however, was erected not only for decorative purposes: the cargo port built at the mouth of the Mzymta, which served the construction of the Olympic Park facilities, stopped

Alluvium on the coastline of river pebbles. Without this natural process, the entire Imeretinskaya lowland, and with it the stadiums, risked being washed into the sea. The multi-kilometer embankment should serve as protection from storm waves, but it does not cope with this function, according to Kalinovskaya. Alternative projects using world experience in the construction of such structures, the ecologist is sure, could save the beach and provide reliable protection to the lowlands. “We are not against beauty, we are normal adequate people. We're just saying that it could have been done differently. Leave the beach to its width and then make a two-tier terracing. It would be cheaper, and no one would be washed away - neither people nor the embankment. You see, a natural monument of world importance, protected by UNESCO - here it is, filled with concrete. But no one listens to us, we are locals, we are fools.”

“We know how to paint lips,” Natalya sums up. - I immediately said - they will catch up with bears and gypsies, they will play the balalaika, they will treat them with caviar and pour vodka. And so it happened. They say it right on TV, go, people, to the Crimea, before they mess up there. They are happy there now, and then, like us, they will live at a construction site for three or four years.

The sun is rapidly sinking into the sea, the cries of young people resting on a narrow rocky strip near the shore are getting louder, the sound of broken glass is heard. Kalinovskaya decisively takes out her phone and dials the number of the district police officer:

– Dear, have you been to the beach for a long time? Stop by, otherwise our beautiful youth has gone naughty.

I ask if she's too strict: Friday night, south, sea, and it seems that no one is fighting yet.

- They don’t fight yet, and they don’t drown anyone yet. And let them at least clean up after themselves, cherish at least the good that is still left.

Kalinovskaya walks home with a firm gait, greeting everyone she meets and discussing in whose pockets the settlement gas could settle. I decide to walk straight along the embankment to the Olympic Park in order to finally see the stadiums familiar from sports broadcasts not through the fence. It is quite crowded around: rare off-season tourists, local fishermen rushing on bicycles to the pier for the evening bite, athletes (apparently passing some kind of training camp here) on evening jogging. I pass the pier, gradually there are fewer and fewer passers-by, on the right, the familiar three-meter fence grows disgustingly. Soon after him there are Olympic facilities. I hope that somewhere in this fence there will be a gate or a gate leading to the coveted Olympic Park, I walk a kilometer, another one and run into a dead end: right in front of me, the same fence crosses the embankment and goes into the sea. On the left, the waves of the Black Sea beat against the stones, on the right, behind a high fence, the famous Olympic fountain dances to Tchaikovsky's waltz. I turn around and wander back along the alley of half-dried palm trees stuck into the dusty gravel, until the pier, illuminated by fishing lanterns, like a Christmas tree with a Christmas garland, is again shown in the distance.

The Olympic Park was built exactly where I once loved to walk and next to the bay in which I always swam in splendid isolation.
Several times I tried to follow the same route and find my once favorite place. Almost succeeded.

The picture during the day, to put it mildly, is nothing - glass, concrete and asphalt with occasional splashes of greenery. However, the pre-set sun works wonders, and if you are going to take a walk there, then go in the late afternoon. At the end of the post there will be pictures before, and now some fresh photos with explanations.


For starters, an inspiring sea view from a large ice palace

Exactly in this place there was an emerald-green plain and reeds higher than my 172 (the only Colchis swamps in Russia - a stopping place for migratory birds and one of the key ornithological territories of Russia).
Now the tile is vibrating underfoot (I still haven’t figured out the reason for the vibration), and a view of 3 structures:
On the left is a large ice palace, on the right is the Puck ice arena, and the furthest in the center is the Fisht stadium.

The stadium got its name from the mountain peak of the same name in the western part of the Main Caucasian Range (translated from the Adyghe language, the word "fisht" means "white head")

Mountain View. The painted hangar on the right is the back of the Fisht Stadium. And there are trees behind the tourists, you see? This is an Old Believer cemetery enclosed by a high fence, it is located between the Fisht Stadium and Torch Square.

Sea view from the same spot.

Directly at the rate of new houses on Parusnaya Street, there used to be a holiday village.

Another view of the sea.

Reflection of the sunset in a large ice palace. He has a secret glazing. During the day, the glass is mirrored and nothing but a reflection of the surrounding space is visible there. As soon as it starts to get dark, the mirror properties gradually disappear and you can already look inside.

Sea view from inside, very futuristic building.

View from the end, the wall of the large ice palace in the section, so to speak). These metal laces are lined with glass on the outside and are part of the supporting structure for the roof of the stadium.

And a couple of photos from the past.

Imeretinskaya lowland (2006), untouched by the construction, see what color the sea is in the lower left corner, there was the cleanest water in the Sochi region. Photo taken

Now this place looks like this, there is simply no greenery. Photo from here

The same place in 2010, the construction site has already been deployed, fenced off... and carefully guarded!

I wonder from whom? There were several such installations along the perimeter of the construction site.

There will be no conclusions yet, I showed you only a tiny piece of a vast territory. To be continued, as well as my personal opinion about what we have lost and what we have gained.
As they say, don't switch.

The Olympics have passed, and the strength test of all coastal Olympic facilities has also passed. The area passed the test in winter, competitions and tourists. But what now? In the Imereti lowland, preparations for the Formula 1 competition are in full swing, and people are already swimming on the shore.

What does this place look like now? Let's see?

1. The coastal cluster of Olympic venues today is the quietest and most deserted place.

2. When looking in all directions - empty. Rare, rare people run past.

3. In the center, everything is even and clean.

4. Rare visitors are photographed for memory.

5. In most open spaces, only traces of construction equipment are visible.

6. But why is it so empty here? Because people just have nothing to do here now? Not only.

7. For example, let's take a look at the tracks made in the colors of the Olympiad rings. There are few people here. And they go to the open exits. It's hard to tell from the photos, but in fact, the territory of the construction site of the racing track is fenced off. Plus, there is a strange fence around the territory, even in those places where nothing needs to be built.

8. Is that why no one is here? There is a fence behind the houses.

9. Why is there no one on the square? Because to enter here you need to forgive two fences with holes.

10. And all this despite the fact that in the center of the square there is a mini-cafe and some entertainment. I don't understand why it's all fenced off.

11. Here, against the backdrop of a large ice arena, you can see some building materials. In this part, almost everything is ready for the race track. Rare places of work - turns and former lawns.

12. The closest hotel to the place. Clearly, the demand for numbers is now minimal.

13. Rare cars in this area - builders and organizers of the open day in Sochi.

14. Here you can see the fence.

15. And here is the end of sports facilities and a lonely car in front of the hotel. To get here, you need to know all the open passages.

16. The future attraction is an amusement park.

17. Hotel "Azimut".

18. We are moving from the Olympic venues to the Black Sea coast. The passage consists of two demolished sections of the fence near the guard's booth.

19. And here is the sea!

20. On May 16, they already swam boldly here.

21. In this area, the water turned out to be very clean, in contrast to the place where the Mzymta flows into the sea.

22. A beautiful promenade with a separate bike path stretches along the entire coast.

23. The bike path was in very little demand.

24.

25. Various small design elements.

26. We are moving towards the border with Abkhazia. The embankment narrows a bit.

27. There were definitely a lot of people - fishermen!

28. In the afternoon, the air temperature is above +30, and they are here!

29.

30. And now what I liked the least. With ennoblement, the embankment becomes sandwiched with fences. There are more people here, there are old residential buildings nearby, hotels with tourists. And you feel squeezed into some strange framework.

31. Somewhere there arrived.

32. And here it seems like you need to sit on a bench and admire the sea. But who likes to admire the sea, if at the eye level of an ordinary person there is a fence with thick rods?

33. And behind the fence, the view is noticeably better.

34.

35. And finally - a piece of the old part of this place. Historically, there were state farms here. One large area is called "Sovkhoz Rossiya".

36. And on this I will finish today's story!

Thank you for your attention! Stay in touch!

You can read other May entries about Sochi and its surroundings in my blog!

Where did the lands of the Olympic ornithological park disappear: an interactive map of the cut of the Imeretinskaya lowland January 31st, 2014

It's time to expose another popular lie about the consequences of the Olympics for the nature of Russia. Dmitry Kozak said at the conference "Sport and the Environment": Russia has fulfilled its obligations in the environmental sphere in full... A natural ornithological park has been created in the Imereti Lowland with an area of ​​more than 200 hectares.
However, in reality, something different happened - the officials intended for the park successfully "sawed up" the Olympic lands, and two-thirds of the area of ​​the "bird park in the Imeretinskaya lowland" is located outside the Imeretinskaya lowland itself.
The Imeretinskaya lowland, destroyed by the Olympic construction, had no analogues on the Black Sea coast of Russia in terms of the diversity of migratory birds and coastal flora. According to the data of the Union for the Protection of Birds of Russia, obtained on the basis of more than a hundred counts in 1997-2006, up to 200 species of birds were noted in the lowland during migration, of which 26 species are included in the Red Book of the Krasnodar Territory, and 22 species - in the Red book of Russia. In cold winters, more than 16 thousand individuals of 65 species of birds met here.
In 2006, the Imereti Lowland was included in the list of territories that meet the criteria of the Ramsar Convention on the Protection of Wetlands, and in 2008 it was recognized as a key bird area of ​​international importance.
To protect birds and rare plants, back in 2004, scientists developed projects for an ornithological reserve and a natural monument to preserve coastal vegetation, which were supposed to include fields of the Rossiya state farm and wetlands with a total area of ​​about 800 hectares. This is what the lowland area looked like before the start of the Olympic construction (the boundaries of the proposed protected areas are marked in red)

And here is an interactive map of the existing distribution of land on the territory of the Imereti lowland. Green on the map shows the areas that actually entered the ornithopark, red - the boundaries of the areas allocated for various objects (information on the objects is available when they are selected). As a result of all the manipulations with the land on the Imeretinskaya lowland, less than 100 hectares remained for the ornithopark, divided into 8 sections (clusters).

What follows is a rather lengthy description of how officials and builders actually "protected" the nature of the Imeretinskaya lowland.

So, in order to justify the construction of Olympic venues in a key bird area of ​​international importance, Sochi's bid book contained a number of unfulfilled promises. In particular, it was argued that existing lakes would be preserved as wintering grounds for birds and habitats for protected plants.
Also in the application book it was promised: “Olympic Park will exclude uncontrolled development of the territory and mitigate the negative impact on ecosystems. No long-term negative impact is expected."
To fulfill these promises, the program for the construction of Olympic facilities provided for the organization of a specially protected natural area of ​​regional significance - a natural ornithological park.
The design work on the ornithopark began only in 2009, and it turned out that almost all the lands on the Imeretinskaya lowland had already been divided for development with various objects, and there was nowhere to place the ornithopark promised in the Application Book with an area of ​​300 hectares on the lowland. Some of the lakes were filled in, and the most valuable part of the proposed ornithological park turned out to be behind a stone fence on the land provided by the military unit of the FSB of Russia. Therefore, the authorities decided to give the stormwater drainage ponds and the surrounding areas, as well as a wetland area in the northern part of the lowland, to the ornithopark. But the land was sorely lacking, and in order to gain the promised area of ​​300 hectares, it was decided to place most of the "ornithological park in the Imeretinskaya lowland" outside the Imeretinskaya lowland, on abandoned agricultural lands.
Even at the design stage, in April 2009, the Union for the Protection of Birds of Russia sent its position on the ornithopark project to the administration of the Krasnodar Territory and the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation. Scientists have stated: “The creation in a limited area of ​​the Imeretinskaya lowland of a series of disparate nature protection facilities for various purposes, including some that are not entirely clear, shows that the project developers do not have a clear idea of ​​the natural park as an integral specially protected natural area that has organizational features defined by the current legislation. This scheme also fails to meet the biological needs of the birds that use this area as habitats; in particular, it is proposed to include in the nature park only a small part of the territories that are still of importance for the conservation of birds. In the proposed version, the scheme leads to discrediting the idea of ​​creating a natural park for the purpose of preserving unique natural objects.”

However, the opinion of scientists was not heeded. According to the latest version of the boundaries, approved by the decree of Governor Tkachev dated October 1, 2012, the territory of the park consists of 14 plots scattered over a vast territory with a total area of ​​298 hectares, while on the Imeretinskaya lowland itself, the ornithopark got about 100 hectares, divided into 9 plots. The remaining two thirds of the area are located along the Psou River and in the mountains.
The figure shows the boundaries of the actually created clusters of the ornithological park (green) and the boundaries previously proposed by scientists (red).

But even those drainage ponds, which theoretically could become a place for wintering and a temporary stopover for migratory birds, the authorities decided to use at their discretion. Based on the Regulations on the ornithopark, the sites located on the Imeretinskaya lowland will be used for recreation and commercial use as a kind of amusement park.
On the website of the ornithopark, the use of the sites is described as follows:
Cluster 1: as a recreation area for residents and guests of the resort city of Sochi.
Cluster 2: mode of use not described,
Cluster 3: not included in the ornithological park
Clusters 5 and 6: after the construction of the regulator pond is completed, the cluster is expected to be populated by aquatic, semi-aquatic, cranes, chicken and other birds. It will be used for environmental education of the population and guests of the resort city of Sochi.
Cluster 7: it is planned to use the cluster as a demonstration zone showing the diversity of avifauna and other representatives of the animal world, as well as the construction of a unique dendrological park.
Cluster 8: after construction is completed, the cluster is expected to be used as a park area with a butterfly pavilion and a demonstration of insects from the Imeretinskaya lowland.
Cluster 9: the cluster is supposed to be used as a park area with children's playgrounds, a children's contact zoo.
Obviously, under the planned protection regime, disturbance-sensitive bird species will not be able to use the territory of the Imereti Lowland.
At the same time, clusters of 10, 13, 14, 15. However, cluster 10 is partially built up with border facilities, and the rest of it is located in the Psou riverbed, cluster 13 is intensively used for agriculture, and clusters 14 and 15 are generally located beyond the state border of Russia. However, all these clusters remain virtual - none of them is singled out asindependentland plot.
In the photo: view of cluster 6 of the ornithological park, January 2014, Yandex.

Work on the “land improvement” of the ornithopark has already begun. In 2013, more than 600 million rubles were allocated for the construction of paths and buildings for the administration, but this money has nothing to do with the protection of birds.
The situation is no better with regard to the protection of vegetation. The only surviving area of ​​seaside vegetation - the natural monument "A section of the beach with sandy seaside vegetation between the recreation centers" Chernomorets "and" Energia "was destroyed in April 2013 despite repeated promises by the Olimpstroy Group of Companies to include this area in the ornithopark.
At present, the territory of the former natural monument looks like this (Yandex, January 2014)


Thus, instead of a protected area on the Imeretinskaya lowland, officials organized a kind of zoo, which they plan to populate with domesticated birds, build aviaries and pavilions for butterflies on the banks of drainage ponds. At the same time, the area of ​​​​the created ornithopark is eight times smaller than the territory that was destroyed.
Summing up, we can say with sadness - because of the greed of officials, a unique natural object has been irretrievably destroyed, and in our time no public lie can hide this. The main culprit of the "cutting" and destruction of the Imeretinskaya lowland is Governor Tkachev, who was responsible for the creation of an ornithological park and the distribution of Olympic lands. It is no coincidence that a huge piece of the Imeretinskaya lowland went to Sochi-Park OJSC, owned by his son-in-law's offshore, for the construction of an amusement park not related to the Olympic Games. This is much more important than the protection of flora and fauna.
In the photo: the construction site of Sochi-Park OJSC on the former habitats of birds, January 2014, Yandex..

All the time of the Olympic construction at the Rossiya state farm there were pickets and rallies. Their inspirer is Natalya Kalinovskaya, chairman of the local TOS "Psou", a member of the Public Ecological Council of Sochi. The activist is one of the Sochi residents who perceive the 2014 Games extremely negatively.

“We have been building for five years”

We are sitting with Natalya Kalinovskaya and her friend Svetlana Beresteneva in a tiny kitchen. Here, in an apartment of less than 30 sq. m, eleven people are registered - her family, her daughter's family, her ex-husband. Svetlana, who has been on the waiting list for better living conditions since she was born in 1966, is still on the thresholds of the administration. Recently, she was offered an apartment in Krasnaya Polyana, but the woman does not want to move there: she does not like how she claims that there is no social infrastructure in the mountains, it is difficult to get there. He continues to seek an apartment here, in the remaining houses for migrants and volunteers.

- From the Games, we received lack of money and unemployment (Rosstat also fixed the increase in unemployment. - Gazeta.Ru), - says Kalinovskaya. - Do you know how our acquaintance with the IOC (International Olympic Committee) began? In April 2008, the first commission of the Olympic Committee was supposed to arrive. Governor Tkachev said that not a single house would be demolished, not a single family would be harmed. And before the visit of the IOC, talks about the demolition had just begun. We prepared posters and hid them in the Old Believer cemetery. When the IOC commission appeared there, they got it and tried to deploy it. The police ran towards us and a fight broke out. So the locals got acquainted with the Olympic Committee. We realized that there was no one on our side.

- I, - Beresteneva adds with a smile, - had a hope that because of this cemetery the stadium would not be built.

Built. A couple of tens of meters from the Fisht stadium, there is a functioning churchyard fenced with a fence, which was covered with red screens during the Olympics.

“We put up with construction for five years,” the women continue. “Thousands of guest workers were brought in, who dragged everything edible from their houses at night. A friend left a frying pan with cutlets on the stove, so they dared them too, they threw the frying pan in the garden.

Olympic construction had a detrimental effect on the holiday season. Rest in "Russia" was cheaper than in the hyped Adler and Sochi itself. Having arrived in the first year of construction, the tourists did not return: the entire site was buzzing around the clock with bulldozers and excavators, it was impossible to open the windows because of the dust. Tourists who came for many years in a row shrugged: the village was unrecognizable.

However, after the construction was completed, tourists began to return.

— This summer people went. For example, a couple from Moscow moved in with me, who used to go to Berdyansk in Ukraine. It’s dangerous there now, they were looking for somewhere cheaper, the interlocutors add.

State farm "Russia" in Sochi before the Olympics

Last fall, in an interview with Sochi Mayor Anatoly Pakhomov, he agreed that the Coastal Cluster, which includes the former state farm, “requires additional presentations” - at the height of the season, the number of rooms in the Imeretinskaya Lowland was 55% full.

Today, by the way, on many fences in the state farm "Rossiya" there are sweeping inscriptions "For Sale".

I'm trying to bring at least something positive, because in the Imeretinskaya lowland they laid roads, made a gas accumulator, and planted flower beds.

- Do you know that even the Olympic flame burned from a balloon? Kalinovskaya interrupts. “We didn’t have network gas, and we don’t have it. After every rain, the Ministry of Emergency Situations comes to pump water out of the yards. When the captured Germans built the state farm, the roads were laid with cobblestones, the water soaked into the ground. Now everything is covered with asphalt, it flows in streams into the lowlands. There were concrete power poles at the state farm - they were replaced with wooden ones.

"Adler jumped a hundred years ahead"

Saying goodbye to the activists, I walk along the residential quarters that have grown up on the site of greenhouses. Smooth roads, neat houses against the backdrop of snow-capped peaks and blue skies. There are almost no people. All this is bright, beautiful, but completely uninhabited.

Not all residents of Imeretinka are dissatisfied with the proximity to the Olympics. I find Viktor Altunyan in the new Tavrichesky microdistrict. On the site of his former courtyard, an Olympic station was built, in return they were given a standard house and a plot.

State Farm Russia after the Olympics

- They sent a resolution in advance, explained: either take the money, or a new house. I like to do housework, I chose the second option, - the man explains, looking up from the construction site. There are planed boards and tools on the ground. At the back of the yard, he is completing a two-story utility block.

“We have been living here for the fourth year,” Altunyan shares.

There were no communications in the same place, except for light. Now there is gas (albeit imported: it is pumped into the reservoir, from there it is distributed to homes), sewerage, water.

“Adler jumped a hundred years ahead,” the Sochi resident lists. - Previously, it took an hour and a half to get to the city, now I get to the new interchanges in 20 minutes. Of course, there are those who are dissatisfied. But the person was given everything new - say thank you, most of my acquaintances moved on a positive note.

Olympic torch

He also brushes aside complaints about five years of continuous construction: when a house is being renovated, one has to endure inconvenience, without noise and dust such an Olympics cannot be built.

And the dissatisfied, he adds, most likely fed from the demolished greenhouses, where they grew radishes and other vegetables. He says that there are no problems with employment in Imeretinka.

I'm leaving Rossiya in the evening. On the embankment, where the sun hid in the sea in ten minutes, couples are walking, several mothers with babies, cyclists are slowly pedaling. There are not many people, despite the warm Saturday evening. A little more vacationers are on the square in front of the central fountain: thirty people watch a bright musical show with foam jets and lighting. The rest of the Olympic Park is empty, you can wander along the illuminated paths all alone.

Cemetery of the Old Believers (circle on the left side of the frame)

This week, Gazeta.Ru will also launch a special project dedicated to the anniversary of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Readers will be presented with a panoramic interactive map of the Sochi Olympic venues, which will capture the three main periods of the Olympic Sochi: 1) the moment of preparation for the Olympics, the construction of facilities and infrastructure; 2) the competitive period of the Games, the number of medals played at each venue, the success of Russian athletes; 3) the Olympic legacy and how Sochi lives now, how facilities are used, what competitions are held and planned.