From a sports mega-event to a regional mega-project: the Sochi winter Olympics and the return of geography in state development priorities

Abstract

This article explores the relationships between sport, space and state in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. While the extant literature has predominantly attributed the Russian government's motives behind hosting the Olympics to showcasing Putin's Russia, this article provides a more nuanced account of the Sochi project in light of its entanglements with regional development and its implications for Russia's spatial governance. It argues that Sochi has been an important experimental space for the federal state in its reconstitution and re-territorialisation of the institutions of economic development. The Sochi project signposts a dual process: the return of regional policy to the state's priorities and a (selective) return of the federal state to urban development. Whilst not without controversies and inconsistencies, this practice signifies a reestablishment of strategies seeking a more polycentric economic development, including through supporting places on Russia's less developed peripheries. The article also presents insights into the practical operations of the Sochi project and its legacies, including most recent data on the disbursement of its budget. ARTICLE HISTORY

State strategies for leveraging sports mega-events: unpacking the concept of ‘legacy’

“…Interestingly, there does not appear to be a great deal of difference between regime types in terms of hoped-for legacies; thus, advanced capitalist, autocratic and communist states share similar aims through hosting SMEs. The above works have been complemented admirably by those who focus on the main aims set out by specific sports events -which generally equate to hoped-for legacies from the events -the most notable of which, in the context of the Olympic Games, includes: Sydney's hosting of the 2000 Games (Faulkner et al, 2000;Stewart et al, 2004;Cashman, 2006;Lenskyj, 2012;Veal et al, 2012); the beleaguered 2004 Games in Athens (Tziralis et al, 2006;Hede, 2005;Boukas et al, 2013); the 'communist-consumerist' 2008 Games in Beijing (Xu, 2006;Jinxia and Managan., 2008;Manzenreiter, 2010;Zhang and Zhao, 2009;Preuss and Alfs, 2011;Giulianotti, 2015); the London 2012 Games (Girginov and Hills, 2008;2009;Girginov, 2011;Bloyce and Lovett, 2012;Green, 2012;Weed et al, 2012;Weed, 2014; Devine, 2013); Sochi's staging of the 2014 Winter Olympics (Alekseyena, 2014;Orttung and Zhemukhov, 2014;Grix and Kramareva, 2015;Muller, 2015;Golubchikov, 2017); and Rio's organization of the 2016 Games (Almeida et al, 2014;Osorio and Versiani, 2014;Rocha, 2015;Bizarro et al, 2016).…”

Etkinliklerin Öteki Yüzü: Olimpiyat Oyunları Örneği

“…Sochi, 2007'de Rusya'nın olimpiyat oyunları teklifini kazanmasının ardından 12 milyar $ olarak belirlenen bütçesinin oldukça üzerine çıkmıştır (Taylor, 2014). Olimpiyat oyunlarının maliyetleri beklenenden 4,5 kat fazla çıkarak +50 milyar $'a mal olmuştur (Müller, 2014;Golubchikov, 2017). Sochi için maliyetlerin bu kadar fazla çıkmasının pek çok faktörü vardır.…”

“…Bunlardan bazıları spor tesisleri olurken diğerleri, kentsel ve bölgesel altyapının genel olarak iyileştirilmesi, elektrik santrallerinin yapılması, yeni su ve kanalizasyon sistemleri, telekomünikasyon ve büyük bir ulaşım ağı yapılan yatırımlardan bazılarıdır. Bunların yapılmasındaki ana amaç Sochi şehrinin dağ-iklim tatil merkezi olmasını sağlamaktır (Golubchikov, 2017). Altyapı konusunda yapılanlar daha geniş olarak Tablo 4'te verilmiştir (IOC, 2015).…”

Sports and the city

“…the Olympic Games and FIFA World Cup) as a platform to narrate a particular identity for their city or state, while also serving as a justification for revamping local infrastructure, reconfiguring and “beautifying” large swaths of a city, and developing costly new facilities with government funds or public–private partnerships (e.g. Ahmed, ; Andranovich & Burbank, ; Broudehoux, , ; Chalkley & Essex, ; Dawson, ; Gaffney, ; Garcia‐Ramon & Albet, ; Golubchikov, ; Grix, ; Hiller, ; Horák, ; Horne & Manzenreiter, ; Kassens‐Noor, ; Klauser, ; Koch & Valiyev, ; Manzo, ; Müller, , , ; Tasgold, ; Trubina, ; van der Westhuizen, ; Whittle, Lomax, Heppenstall, & Brerton, ). Others have focused on hotly contested bid process, which itself becomes an important site in which urban politics and competing identity narratives play out (e.g.…”