Russia

From Sochi With Love

From Sochi With Love

We’ve all been watching with wonder and amazement the performances and emotional achievements of the worlds best winter athletes at The Sochi Olympics. Whilst also hearing the back story of this being the $51 billion Olympics, where not everything was ready on time, and the tap water is also a gold, silver and bronze colour! Sochi, and the resort of Krasnaya Polyana where many of the events are staged, was a small, rustic Russian village and ski hill up until the start of the games. I saw this first hand when I went there to heliski four years ago.


In January 2010, I had the rare opportunity to visit Russia in the middle of winter. Sochi had just been awarded the Olympics, and I had been in contact with a French company who had pioneered heli skiing in that region of Russia. Sochi, I would learn was the gateway to some amazing heli skiing in the Krasna Polyana area, but also Abkhazia in Georgia, just a few hours drive away.
 

From Russia with Love….

From Russia with Love….

I set off for Sochi one January Friday afternoon after my business duties in Moscow with two aims in mind. One to check out Krasnaya Polyana, the Russian ski resort hosting the 2014 Winter Olympics. The other, to go heli skiing Russia- style with the French- owned Russia heliski operator I represent with Total Heliski. I achieved one of the two- you can guess which one.

Sochi is actually a seaside resort on the black sea, on the border of Georgia, a 2hr flight south of Moscow. I disembarked from the dubious sounding airline called ‘S7’ to a temperature about 15 degrees warmer than Moscow. S7 is actually Siberian airlines rebranded, and was surprisingly a very good airline experience going by the crew, interior and food. I was to meet my French guide and another 6 French clients for the weekend.