Deputy Prime Minister Kozak's introductory remarks:
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,
Today we have a regular meeting of the Interdepartmental Commission for the Preparations and Hosting of the Olympic Games. Naturally, the main item on our agenda is the progress in the Olympic preparations.
At present we are in the Olympic infrastructure construction phase, which we will focus on today. Moreover, in light of Vancouver, it would not be remiss to mention that the key to preparing for the games successfully is finishing the sporting facilities in advance, allowing our athletes to begin training there as soon as possible so we get a completely different result in Sochi.
The construction of eight out of the thirteen Olympic venues is funded by private investors, who own and develop these sites. This extensive involvement gives additional responsibility to both these private investors and government officials, who must do everything possible for these venues to be commissioned in a timely manner.
Most of the facilities are scheduled to be opened and used by early 2011 or mid-2012. The only venue that is at risk, so to speak, is the luge and bobsleigh track, which will be opened in late 2012. This delay is because we wasted time considering half-baked ideas. Government officials could not but participate in the lobbying for this issue. Discussions lasted too long, and we wasted several months when we could have a luge and bobsleigh track constructed in early 2012, allowing athletes to train there in the spring of 2012. Here I would like to appeal to all those involved in this project, including the state-owned Olympstroy corporation, the Sochi 2014 organising committee and all the government bodies, primarily the Ministry of Civil Defence, Emergencies and Disaster Relief, which took an active part in coordinating the project. All these groups must abandon their fantasies and begin construction according to the conditions set by the International Olympic Committee. This venue is very important for us since it holds great promise. We have the necessary potential, and if we build a training centre early enough, we can hope for good results.
We will also consider land issues. This is a separate subject that the inhabitants of Sochi are very concerned about. Some 700 households are expected to be relocated due to the construction of Olympic facilities. All the necessary decisions have been made, including regarding pricing policy, and a single methodology has been developed. The main task of the Krasnodar Region government and the [state-owned] corporation [Olympstroy] is to bring these issues to a close quickly. They must not disrupt the construction of Olympic venues and facilities. The rights and legitimate interests of real estate owners, whose property is located on the site of future Olympic venues must not be violated. This is a two-pronged issue that must be entirely resolved in 2010. It must not be carried into 2011.
At the current stage, one of the most critical issues is the future architectural appearance of Sochi. In my opinion, the architects for Olympstroy and the Krasnodar Territory have developed a good design concept for the Olympic venues, which encompasses Sochi, Adler and the whole mountain village. We must embark on this project as soon as possible. This plan has been approved by all and will be shown to us today to introduce us to the architectural face of the 2014 Olympics. However, this is a difficult project, requiring consolidated effort on the part of the federal government, local government, and above all local residents, since they bear much responsibility for maintaining their homes and fences in areas near facilities in Sochi and in areas adjacent to the motorways leading to the mountain village in Adler. Local residents will help to implement the architectural concept. Their land and homes must be in good condition. We must adopt international practices, although, unfortunately, we lack experience in such issues. Site development and architectural design have been always been chaotic. We must include the best international architectural design practices in our armoury. As you know, in Europe and North America the government and municipalities regulate these projects very strictly, and local residents comply.
Now let us turn our attention to the environment. This issue is vital at the present stage of the Olympic preparations, when construction is underway. Yesterday we received a report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Inspectors visited Russia not long ago, at the end of January. I was amazed to see that the inspectors, who toured Olympic construction sites specifically to assess whether environmental standards are being met, did not concentrate on purely environmental matters in their report, even noting a lack of big problems as such. One of the conclusions they drew is that Russian public organisations have taken an unconstructive stand. The inspectors interacted somewhat the leaders of these organisations and discerned that the aim of some of them is to frustrate our efforts on this project, and that they are seeking to call off the impeding site development for the Olympics rather than cooperate and address ecological problems together. They only seek to prevent the construction of the combined railway and highway project, which has been approved already. Instead of addressing environmental challenges and working out a reimbursement plan, they have taken an utterly unconstructive position. This is what the international environmental experts emphasised. We, the organisers, must do our best to convince these people that it is possible to address environment preservation issues while cooperating with us and making progress on the Olympics. At the same time, given that it is an open meeting, I am calling on these public organisations to take a constructive approach, which will benefit the environment and help them accomplish the goals set forth in their statutes.
Another issue I would like to draw your attention to is providing transport at this stage of the preparations. The number of construction sites will triple in 2010, and we must minimise the inconvenience for Sochi residents. Given that last year, when the number of construction sites was three times smaller, hardly anything could be done about the endless traffic jams, we must try our best to prevent traffic congestion. This is a critical issue. Transport problems can slow down construction projects, interfering with timely freight delivery and stalling construction and assembly jobs. This must be averted, which I have stated on several occasions. The municipal administration, the regional government, the Ministry of Transport and the [state-owned] corporation [Olympstroy] must work out possible traffic scenarios. By the end of April they must determine where to build temporary bypass roads, flyovers, bridges and so on. These issues must be solved immediately to prevent Sochi from grinding to a halt. We are already facing traffic problems due to the construction, and the situation will only get worse given the future construction scale.
If you have no objections to the proposed agenda, I suggest we get down to work. I would like to give the floor to Olympstroy President Teimuraz Bolloyev.
Thank you.