Tragic history lurks in Sochi’s ski slopes < News Focus | Expatica Moscow

 

 

At the end of the Caucasus war Russians deported millions of Circassia natives, an area that has seen recent investment from ski resort businesses eager to profit from the upcoming Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics.

Esto-Sadok — When Valter German’s ancestors came to the mountains above Sochi from impoverished Estonia, they found a bucolic valley with few traces of the indigenous people chased out by the Tsarist army.

But the history of Russia’s brutal deportation of the native tribes from the area some 150 years ago has stirred up international controversy and threatens to taint the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics.

Russia is trying to promote the area as a skiing destination, with President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin regularly photographed sitting on ski lifts and chatting in cafes overlooking the slopes.

via Tragic history lurks in Sochi’s ski slopes < News Focus | Expatica Moscow.

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