Sochi (Сочи) is the site of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, located on the Black Sea inside Russia. For those who are a little rusty with geography, the Black Sea Is next to the Mediterranean, and sits in between Greece, Turkey, the Ukraine, Georgia and Russia. The city is perilously close to Chechnya, a territory of Russia’s that has a significant Islamic population. Last July, the Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov (Доку Умаров, in Cyrillic) threatened to disrupt the games. Two suicide bombings occurred last December in Volgograd (Волгоград, “River-City”, a.k.a. Stalingrad).

Above: Umarov, the former Chechen security minister – turned – rebel.

V.I. Putin, in his usual vein, swore to surround Sochi with “a ring of steel”, and so far the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has applauded Putin in his efforts to repress terrorism at the games. They will begin this Friday, February 7th, and run until the 24th. Sochi will host 6000 athletes from 87 different nations, as well as their families and spectators. The head of the Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, says that the games will start without any setbacks. After Putin has put $51 billion and his reputation on the line, a setback at this point – after months of preparation – would be highly embarrassing.

However, despite all the hype for the Sochi games in Russia, including Sochi-themed rubles being printed, even without the terrorist threat Sochi has some problems. For one, Sochi is home to a number of stray dogs, so many in fact that the Russian government has sworn to purge them all – seeing the wandering dogs as a threat to skiers. Although the IOC has claimed that the dogs are peacefully transported (by the hundreds) to caring veterinarians, the world is very skeptical. The man in charge of the company hired to deal with the dogs, Alexei Sorokin, called them “biological trash”. Essentially, the government is going to exterminate as many dogs as possible before the athletes arrive.

Hopefully, those athletes have something to arrive to. Most of Sochi is still under construction. The sports venues are mostly in order, including the Ice Cube Curling Center, the Shabya Hockey Arena, and the Adler speedskating arena. The Bolshoy Ice Dome, apparently, still has some minor problems. The hotels are more varied; although construction is over, utilities services and room organization is still under way in most. High up in the mountain town of 960, known only by the number of meters it sits above sea level, only one hotel is open – a Swissotel. In true Soviet style, most hotels and places are labeled only by number – plaza 23, hotel 5, etc. Comically, most of the large numbers have not been shipped in yet to adorn said public places – most have only a piece of paper with the number written on it.

Even the weather seems to conspire against Sochi, although V.I. Putin gives us his assurance that Mother Nature herself will fall against the forces of Russian technology. Sitting on the Black Sea, Sochi itself is subtropical – not the stereotypical Russian city, frozen eternal. The skiing venue is called Rosa Khutor, and is ~25 miles from Sochi proper. In the last few weeks Sochi has gotten a fairly large natural snow, but many other efforts have gone forward to ensure that the Winter Olympic games have a blanket of white. The Russian government hired a Fin, Mikko Martikainen, to cover Rosa Khutor in snow. In preparation, 650,000 cubic yards of last year’s snow were stored in insulated blankets underground. However, with the snow-producing machinery and the natural fall, that excess snow has become unnecessary.

The snow machines have converted 230 million gallons of water into snow, pumping at 107 gallons of water a minute through each nozzle. The water is stored at very low temperature and high pressure, but in a highly pure form; there are no impurities around which the water can freeze. Snowflakes themselves are ice crystallizing around dirt particles. Snow machine snow is, however, a little more wet and a little less pretty that real snow – in fact, it looks more like small white pellets than actual flakes. Either way, Mr. Putin will have his snow events.

The Russian government, already straining its international relations with the Chechen terrorists, inhumane animal treatment and possibly an unfinished Sochi, has one last problem as well: homosexuals. Putin put through new legislation, labeled as an “anti-propaganda law”, that bans the display of any material or actions that conflict with “traditional values”. Translation: no openly gay men allowed. Seeing how some of the athletes themselves are homosexual, exactly how the Russian government will smooth this over is not clear.

Like many cities before it, Sochi has the usual problems of any Olympics venue, although most venues weren’t constructed over night.