Sochi Olympics' 'ugly environmental legacy' on a small village: Nahlah Ayed

Alexander Koropov has lived on the same, tranquil hill for 25 years. So when a trainsuddenly whistled past, practically through his backyard, he could no longer sleep.

In fact, there has been much to keep him sleepless ever since Russian President VladimirPutin succeeded in convincing the International Olympic Committee to choose Sochi asthe 2014 host city.

Now, seven years later, the Olympics are nearly over already time to consider howSochi will move beyond the games.

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Koropov, meanwhile, is poorer, sicker, and more frustrated than ever. His land, oncehome to a thriving garden and surrounded by trees, is also worse for wear: now a hill ofstubs, and a desiccated garden of weeds where there were once apples, hazelnuts andfigs.

If he could afford it, he says, he would move, even go abroad to claim asylum, just to tryto salvage something of his life.

I lost everything, he says in an interview. I am like a beggar now. I becamean Olympic bum.

Koropov lives in the village of Ashtyr, population 120, give or take a few. Since theOlympics started, hundreds of thousands of people have been in a train or a car withinmetres of Ashtyr, but never saw it so tiny, it is that easy to miss.

Insignificant enough, it seems, that designers neglected to link it to the new highway andtrain line constructed for some $9 billion to move visitors between the two built-from-scratch Olympic clusters.

So there is now only one way in or out of the village.

And yet in more than one way, the Olympics and its infrastructure have been thrust intoAshtyrs backyard. Including the punctual, blazing red train that regularly zips across thebridge that now shadows Koropovs property.

'How can you live like that?'

I want to show you my land and how close it is to the railway, says Koropov as hebegins a practised tour of his disheveled property, which saw its worst days during thethree years it took to build the bridge that now holds the railway and highway.

There is a train right above my head day and night. How can you live like that?

Its easy to lose count of the ways Ashtyr residents say they have been wronged bythe Olympic Games the ways in which they will remember the Games and thepreparations that have possessed their region for nearly a decade.

Limestone quarries sit like open wounds nearby. Trucks used to travel back and forth from them every day,kicking up clouds of dust.

At one point there was illegal dumping. New power lines were set uponly to supply a nearby military installation and the train line of course bypassingthe villages ancient lines entirely. Water wells were damaged in the construction, forcingresidents to rely on water that has to be hauled in three times a week and stored in largeplastic tanks.

The IOC president visited the village last year and was promised the water matter wouldbe resolved before the Olympics began. Its yet to happen.

Yes its taking its time, IOC spokesman Mark Adams said recently in response to ajournalists question. We have asked the local authority to come back to us and I believewe have a promise that by the end of March they will havewater.

A bus started to come a few times a day to transport residents in and out of the village.But only erratically. And only after repeated complaints.

[The area] was very beautiful. There were huge trees, says Koropov.

The river got smaller, and almost no fish in it now. Even the fish you get now smellslike diesel fuel.

'Been written off the records'

He says most of his land has been seized and declared public property. Demands forcompensation have largely gone unheard.

Its like we have all been written off the records, says Koropov.

He doesnt blame Putin. He says the responsibility lies with the local authorities. He cantafford to go to court.

This is how the Olympics turned out for us.

He says the village wasnt against the idea of hosting the Olympics. But residents neverexpected the uglyenvironmental legacy such an international event could leave behind.

No one speaks about the dark side of the Olympics, he says ruefully.

Only the positive side: How it is beautiful near the sea, and well, its true. But just lookhere. I am twenty metres from the highway.

Forgotten before, and during the Olympics, they suspect they will also be forgotten after, when its all over.