As it turned out we eventually alighted upon an unexpected solution for our problem with the mountain at Deep Yar Waterfall, but I do not think anyone could ever claim it was easy. For over twenty-five years, Russian Railways had used huge tunnel-boring machines (also known as TBMs, or moles, for obvious reasons) to excavate the Severomuysky Tunnel in Siberia – at 15.3km, Russia’s longest tunnel. They were behemoths, standing 10m high, 9m wide, 100m long, and weighing thousands of tonnes in total. It would have taken eight months, at least, for a piece of new equipment, one which could be adapted to excavate any kind of rock, to be delivered. Eight months we simply did not have. The only other option that I was presented with was flying one of the existing machines from Siberia via Altay to Italy, where its major components could be refurbished to perform the task at hand, and then back to Sochi. That is pretty much the equivalent of picking up a house, loading it onto a plane, and then carrying it thousands of miles. There was only one plane on the planet large enough to carry it: the Antonov 124-100, which normally moves trains. (I wonder how many people noticed the irony of this project being saved by a plane designed during the Soviet Union and built in Ukraine, with whom tensions were already ratcheting up.)
The enormous Antonov was a Soviet-style solution, one that, like the enterprise as a whole, relied on state intervention to succeed. I have yet to learn of an infrastructure company in the world that can make its living from commercial operations alone. Infrastructure by its very nature needs a substantial amount of government investment. For example, we calculated during the period of modernisation of BAM and Transsib that we needed 560 billion roubles, of which we could provide 360 billion roubles through our commercial activity. The rest had to be made up by the state. The situation was no different here. In the past we had been able to secure investment from private enterprise, but since companies with sufficient capital in Russia at the time were increasingly few and far between, we were ultimately reliant on cross-financing from the government.
All of the major Russian corporations (both those owned by the state and private enterprise) were involved in the process, but more than anything it was the unwavering political will to ensure that the Olympic Games was successful that provided everybody with the necessary momentum. In some ways, it was reminiscent of Ust-Luga, another PPP project in which the state made a very strong commitment.
Central to this was Dmitry Kozak, the deputy Prime Minister, who was faced by a monstrous task. On the one hand, he was overseeing the creation of an Olympic site in an area whose existing facilities and infrastructure were so minimal that the project was effectively one of building from the ground up. On the other hand, he needed to demonstrate to private businessmen that they could expect a return on the very substantial investment they were being asked to contribute – that the sporting and hospitality facilities, as well as the transport network, that were being constructed would all have a future beyond the winter of 2014. In parallel to this work, he was also responsible for the coordination of both state and local agencies, government ministries, corporations, banks, and, in conjunction with the specially created company ‘Olympstroy’, the Russian Olympic Committee.
Kozak was able to draw upon his legal background, vast experience in the civil service and government, and the support of the government, Duma and President to overcome the many obstacles facing him. He skilfully negotiated a path that cut through the objections over conservation, the layers of bureaucracy and local egoism, and introduced the special legislation, along with amendments to existing federal and local laws, that made the project possible. What we built was perhaps not perfect (what infrastructure development ever is?), and we made, and corrected, mistakes along the way, but if one considers the circumstances, as well as the end result, I still regard Sochi as a success.
In terms of scale, complexity, and pace of construction, there is nowhere anywhere in the world that is comparable to the work we completed in Sochi. The transport infrastructure was built in difficult engineering and geotechnical conditions with minimal disruption to the Sochi nature reserve’s landscape, all of which necessitated ingenious, highly technical solutions (it was not for nothing that our work beneath the Dragon’s Mouth was recognised with a prize at the 2011 International Tunnelling Awards).
And it was all completed under unbelievable pressure, both in terms of scrutiny and the immovable deadline we had to meet. In just five years, we built, among other things, 131km of railway and road; forty-six rail bridges and twenty-three road bridges; twelve tunnels; four new stations (and remodelled a further three); 37km of temporary roads; 43km of overhead power lines; a 2.8km shuttle connection between Adler and Sochi airport; a five-storey transport hub linking rail, road and water transport; railway freight yards; and a 49-room sanatorium complete with a five-star health resort. It is an achievement about which I feel incredibly proud. I remember that, after the Opening Ceremony, 40,000 people, who were supposed to be dispersed between buses and cars, rushed directly to the railway station. As I watched them surge towards the entrance I felt my heart trembling, but we managed it. Everything worked perfectly.
The infrastructure we created has contributed to the renaissance of Sochi’s fortunes over the past ten years. Its transport network has been transformed completely, the city no longer looks like the ghost of its Soviet incarnation, and its environment is no longer afflicted by the pollution that once rendered its waters so unsavoury. Tourist numbers have almost returned to their pre-1991 levels, and it possible once more to consider it as our nation’s ‘summer capital’.
Sochi was not just a success for Russian Railways, but a symbol of Russia’s own development. It would have been completely impossible to achieve what we did in Sochi in the volatile, fragmented climate of the 1990s. The legal system then was still in a state of flux; power was weak, dispersed. Different interest groups circled the President hungrily, each trying to push the country in a different direction, and the composition of the government changed as often as ladies’ gloves. Chechnya, less than 300 miles from Sochi, had been consumed by a vicious civil war, one that to many seemed to presage the absolute disintegration of the rest of the country.
By the time that Sochi had won the right to host the Games, things were already completely different. President Putin and his government had managed to consolidate the state’s authority and create a government that could actually govern, as well as prising power out of the hands of the oligarchs. By returning peace to Chechnya, they had also managed to prevent the further disintegration of the country. The economy was growing, and you could feel a new optimism in the general mood of society: young people were starting new businesses; there was a huge fall in capital-crime rates.
Much has already been said about the political nature of this iteration of the Winter Games, specifically in terms of Russia and the President’s political authority.
The majority of the Russian population were opposed to the idea of using sport as an explicitly political vehicle – they wanted a ‘clean’ Olympics – but at the same time, people realised that it did offer an opportunity to, on the one hand, introduce the world to traditional Russian hospitality and dignity, and on the other, to use this grand project to consolidate the Russian economy and state institutions, and to consolidate Russian society as a whole. To my mind, these targets were achieved.
The Sochi Olympics should have been heralded as an achievement in itself, as well as a symbol of Russia’s new vibrancy and confidence. The fact that we were able to put on such an impressive spectacle at all, given the many challenges faced, should have been cause for celebration, as was the fact that a record number of nations competed and that the host nation had topped the medal table.