Feeling Canadian Pride in Russia

Day 13 – February 12, 2014

I thought I’d start this post by describing seven habits of highly effective Russians. Well, maybe not quite seven habits. And perhaps they’re not all highly effective Russians either. Okay, I’m no Stavislav Covey, you know.

In some ways they seem to be very polite. It is required protocol to say “priyatnaga appetita”, or “bon appetit”, at the start of every meal. And they shake your hands when they greet you in the morning, which I thought was only a French thing.

However, try standing in a line-up with a few Russians. Any personal space you may have had will suddenly disappear. And for the proper non-cluster queues, you feel like you are not moving fast enough as the person behind you is right behind you. An excuse to move to the front? Yup, they’ll find one.

They smoke a lot in Russia.

That was outside one of the stairwells where they’ve housed some of the security people. Remember the high school smoking pits? They have one here at the venue.

The interesting thing is that when you take the train somewhere, you’ll hear an announcement stating “Sochi is a smoke-free city; please refrain from smoking in public places.” It seems a lot of people do not ride the train.

Russians like their tea, even more than coffee it seems. I thought that was a British thing. They’ll have it with every meal. And during breaks. I already mentioned that they don’t use milk, just sugar. Lots of sugar!

And what my wife Judy and her family call a “sport hankie” and the Aussies call a “Bushman’s Hankie” is very popular here. Oh well, when in Rome…

Today I have a day off. I found out late yesterday from Maria that she had managed to find me a ticket for Nordic Combined, which takes place this afternoon. Great! I can sleep in a little, have a little breakfast, work on my blog post, and then enjoy the afternoon being a real live spectator.

For breakfast, again something different and unknown.

At first I thought that these were chicken patties, but they were soft. Turns out they were some sort of soy patty. It was edible but I think I’ve had it with this Russian variety thing. I want the crepe rolls back.

The Nordic Combined competition has athletes ski jumping, where they are ranked based on distance travelled and style, followed by a (in this case) 10 kilometre cross country ski free technique (skating) race where the skiers start based on how they placed in the ski jump. The jumper with the highest points goes first, the next one leaves a certain number of seconds after based on how far behind the leader he was, and so on. First skier across the line wins the event.

The RusSki Gorki venue is about a five minute bus ride from Esto-Sadok to the Esto-Sadok transit hub followed by either a short bus ride up the hill (followed by a 5 or 10 minute walk from the bus stop to the jumps) or a more direct gondola trip. That’s literally a hop, skip and a jump away! Given the long line-up for the gondola, I picked the bus/walk option.

When I arrived, the athletes were doing their practice jumps.

This is the media centre at the end of the landing area.

Would you feel safe entering this building?

I wonder if this region is prone to earthquakes.

The ski jump venue is at the lowest elevation of all the mountain cluster venues. Note how there’s no snow anywhere except on the ski jump hill and the ski track heading off in the distance.

This symbol of Sochi that was in the landing area seemed appropriate.

While the workers packed down the hill…

…the announcer and some singers kept us entertained.

Then onto the ski jumping.

Note the markings in the landing area. The K-point (German “Kritical”) is the steepest part of the hill. The distance from the take-off to the K-point defines the size of the hill. In this case, the skiers were using the smaller K95 hill. The bottom line (HS) is about the furthest that the best skiers can be expected to jump.

Then there was a break for a couple of hours. This gave me a chance to look at the food and drink options, which weren’t overly cheap.

To convert rubles to Canadian dollars, divide by 100 and multiply by 3 (and add 5 to 10 percent).

I had been wondering where the stadium was for the ski race since I could only see the course. Did we have to go somewhere else to see the start/finish? Well what they did was convert the ski jump landing area into a ski course stadium and moved some barriers to open up to the course.

I had never seen anything like this before, and apparently it is unique in the history of the Olympics.

In the meantime, workers were preparing the larger K125 hill for another event.

If the guy on the top, right falls, I can picture a domino effect taking place.

John Heilig, who is the Manager for Nordic Sport at Whistler Olympic Park, is the Technical Delegate for this event. His job is to oversee the event and ensure that it runs smoothly. Here he is on the right.

During the break, a guy comes up and starts talking to me as if he knows me. I was wracking my brain trying to figure out who the heck he was, but it turns out that he was just a spectator from Oakland, California that had been to many Olympics. He was an anthropologist who had been studying smoking amongst various ethnic groups. He turned out to be very interesting to talk to.

He told me that he had a male partner back home who did not like travelling. I almost wonder whether he was looking for a new travelling partner, since he asked me about my family and was a little hard to shake after the event was over, and he made sure to let me know that he was going down to the spa in Sochi afterwards. Knowing how they frown on two guys travelling together down here, I did my best to say “goodbye” in a nice but firm manner.

I watched the sun disappear behind the ski jumps. Or is that “suns”?

After thinking I’d completely lost it, my new friend let me know that one of the suns was just a reflection. Ohhhhh.

Back to the compettion. Here the skiers are leaving on what’s known as a Gunderson start (which I described earlier above). The flip chart you see on the right lists the skiers’ start times.

A German skier and a Japanese skier battled for the lead the whole way, with the German skier pulling ahead the last few hundred metres to win.

They congratulate each other at the finish.

This is all three winners at the flower ceremony.

It was a beautiful day, so I decided to walk down to the train station and then back to the volunteer village.

An early evening moon had risen over the top gondola station at Laura.

Home sweet home.

Day 14 – February 13, 2014

This morning at breakfast we were greeted by this sign.

I can’t possibly imagine what they were trying to tell us but it certainly had me worried. What exactly was going to happen when I bit into that puff? We had sausages again. I really want those crepe rolls back!

On my walk in this morning, I noticed these workers looking at something on the backhoe.

Upon closer examination, I discovered that they had a cigarette lighter under one of the forks and they were going to crush it.

I decided not to hang around to see how their little experiment turned out. I’m thinking they had a bit too much spare time on their hands.

The cold that I caught a few days back seems to be on its way out, and was never really all that bad. No more than a bit of a runny nose. Nothing that a little sport hankie can’t cure.

Riding up the gondola for my afternoon shift, I shared my trip with the Finnish photographer (Kari) again. He was again very interesting to talk to. I found out that still photographers are not allowed to take and post video of any kind anywhere. He did this once at a previous Olympics and, within half an hour, somebody called him and asked him to remove it immediately or else he’d lose his accreditation.

The shift started with lunch. We actually got fruit (apple and pear slices) for the first time!

We were then able to watch today’s race, the women’s 10 kilometre individual start (skiers leave one at a time, every 30 seconds) classic technique. Things are not so bad here at all.

Several Canadians were again skiing. Dasha Gaiazova is one of those Canadians, and she was born in Russia. The announcer interviewed her Russian grandmother in the stands. Apparently Dasha was always a good little girl who never got into trouble.

And off they go!

Slava, Elena and I were able to watch the race from the stands.

Behind us were three members of the Canadian support team, one of whom was the team doctor.

I noticed that cheering is a family affair, even if the flag is a little skewed.

And what do you do after you’ve skied the hardest race of your life? You collapse from exhaustion.

This is the Polish athlete who won the race. She deserves to collapse.

A Swedish athlete came in second. We were right beside her father being interviewed in the stands.

And the winners!

Interestingly, all had Fischer skis.

It was nice to see an American and a Canadian going for a ski together after the race.

Heading down, I had to battle the sea of spectators heading up to see the biathlon event that evening, including this Norwegian supporter (who was having a hard time climbing the hill).

And this guy. Russian First Nations?

Something new for dinner tonight – a package of dried fruit and nuts mixture!

Somebody had mentioned to me that there was a Canadian Sochi Volunteers group on Facebook, so I had joined it the other day. I got home and saw that I was accepted into the group, and noticed a post stating that Canada Olympic House was having an open house. Great, I know what I’m doing tomorrow!

Day 15 – February 14, 2014

It’s Valentine’s Day today, and I noticed this sign.

Hmmm, sounds like fun. I wonder if I should take part…

I noticed that there were police posted every perhaps 100 metres or so around the athlete village perimeter at Laura. With all the security at the venue, I dare not step into the woods to take a leak lest they shoot at the first weapon they think I’m pulling out! Or I might be captured on some TV camera!

The entertainment today was these guys with the world’s biggest catcher’s mitts.

Yes, they actually used them to catch balls.

Couldn’t stay too long to watch that since I had a date with a certain Olympic House.

This is the view inside.

You may have heard of the fridge that only opens with a Canadian passport (which, by the way, I needed to get in the building).

Roch Voisine was there to play but, before he started, there was a special surprise guest: one of the greatest goalies ever – Vladislav Tretiak! Here he is with his wife and daughter.

What a thrill! And then on to some great music!

And a large crowd of Canadians was on hand to watch.

And of course, Roughriders fans! Canada’s biggest football fans are everywhere!

There’s only one Canadian, and Canada’s beer was here! And eagerly consumed.

I spoke to lots of people. One was a lady from Paris who was here to ensure that the French protocol was being properly implemented. And then there was superfan Chad (in the middle) and a couple from Toronto who were involved in the opening ceremonies as part of the human flag and ushering the athletes in.

By the time the open house was over at 7:00 p.m., this sign definitely reflected some of my feelings. So proud to be Canadian!

I was on my way out and ran into Jim and Brian (the ski jumping volunteers), who had managed to acquire “friends, families and athletes” passes. I started speaking with them for a while but it was starting to get well after the time I should have left so, being the good Canadian that I am, I excused myself and left. Not two minutes later, Putin walks into the building! AAAAARGH! Missed him by that much! I had noticed the commotion outside and they had mentioned earlier that he was at the U.S. House next door. This was his entourage outside.

This lucky pair got to shake his hand. The girl kept saying over and over “I shook Putin’s hand twice!”

Oh well, a quick stop at the Pyeongchang Pavilion to see what’s up for 2018.

And then back to the village for some dinner, where the Canada-Austria hockey game was being shown on TV.

I thought “great, they really do love the Canadians and hockey!” And then towards the end of the second period, somebody switches the channel to figure skating. Thank goodness Canada was well ahead at the time (5-0) and you just knew they were going to win.

I noticed someone had posted this sign.

Not sure what it says, but I’ll bet it’s something along the lines of “boy, us Russians, we really love our tea.”