Well, now everything is finally clear and officially confirmed.
And how much screaming there was when we released our project, "Sochi Olympics: An Encyclopedia of Spending."
From Kozak and Putin to petty online propagandists, they all shrieked that it was lies and slander. That the Sochi Olympics did not cost 1.5 trillion rubles. That only 200 billion rubles came from the state, and the rest was private money. That VEB loans would be repaid. And so on and so forth.
So, dear citizens of the Russian Federation, the Olympics in the city of Sochi cost 1.524 trillion rubles. So who was lying: ACF with its figure of 1.5 trillion, or Putin with his figure of 214 billion, which he gave on January 19, 2014, two weeks before the Olympics: "The total figure for Olympic preparations is known, it is 214 billion rubles. If you divide it by today’s exchange rate of 33, you get the corresponding figure in dollar terms. Of those 214 billion, around 100 billion is state money; everything else is money from private companies. First and foremost, of course, it was invested in hotel infrastructure. By the way, we created more than 40—somewhere around, I think, 41,000 to 43,000 new hotel places, essentially completely new ones. As part of developing the resort, this is an extremely important thing. These were the purposes for which our companies’ financial resources were used; these were private investments." http://www.kremlin.ru/news/20080
Here is the official breakdown of spending according to Olimpstroy’s documents:
And here is the breakdown ACF produced in December 2013 based on our research:
As you can see, there are discrepancies, mainly related to the accounting system, but it is fair to say that our analysis was correct.
Olimpstroy’s report states plainly: the main costs were borne by the state, while the “private investors” received loans from the state-owned VEB, and the investors’ own share of funding was often less than 10%. How could one not recall our section on "Creative Lending"?
You may remember my debate with Alexei Venediktov on Echo of Moscow (a Russian radio station); at the time, he was playing “devil’s advocate” and arguing with me as if on the state’s behalf.
We completely disagreed on whether those loans to VEB would ever be repaid. And once again, time has settled the matter: 190 billion rubles in VEB’s “Olympic” loans have already been restructured, and borrowers have been given the right not to repay them for at least another two years.
It is a great shame that the broad masses have such short memories: the money was carved up, these sports facilities are of no use to anyone, the “private investors” were bailed out with state money, not a single criminal case was opened over the theft, and the chance to spend this money wisely for future generations was lost.
http://sochi.fbk.info/md/file/sochi_fbk_report_1.pdf
And silence. As if nothing had happened, as if no one had stolen anything and no one had lied endlessly about the cost of the facilities and the scale of what was stolen. The country has a different agenda now: war, “Gayropa” (a derogatory propaganda term for Europe) is advancing, fascists are bombing peaceful villages. The country is absorbed in the in absentia arrest of some Ukrainian Kolomoisky instead of arresting those who stole hundreds of billions from it.
A modern version of Operation Y (a famous Soviet comedy): it used to be "only theft can save us from an audit," and now it is "only war and Right Sector can save us from an audit."
That means it is the responsibility of those with better memories to remind those with worse ones. Someday our report on the Olympics will become the basis for a prosecutor’s closing argument in court.
We will not forget, we will not forgive.
Once again, I thank all ACF staff for their excellent work on the project—work that, by now, everyone should have to acknowledge. And thanks to everyone who helped spread the truth about corruption at the Olympics and funded our work.