wr2014_web_0

(opposite page, above) Migrant workers fromTajikistan on a construction site in KrasnayaPolyana, Sochi. Thousands of workers fromoutside Russia and from other parts of Russiahave come have come to Sochi to work inconstruction that is underway ahead of the 2014Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.(opposite page, below) Alexander Mzokov, 59,and his wife, Natalia, who lived with their sonsYuri and Evgenii and eight of their relatives in athree-story home in Sochi, learned in April 2012that the authorities would demolish their home of13 years to make way for a road providinginfrastructure for the 2014 Winter Olympic andParalympic Games in Sochi. Although theMzokovs had full legal title to the house and theland on which it stood, the authorities sued themfor constructing an “illegal structure,” and onappeal won a court order to demolish the housewithout providing them fair compensation. Thehouse was demolished on October 4, 2012.(above) Members of the Sochi branch of theRussian Geographical Society conducting fieldresearch in the Caucasus Mountains in Sochi.The Society's Sochi branch has frequentlypublicized information about the potentialenvironmental impacts of Olympic construction.Numerous activists and journalists in Sochi havefaced harassment, pressure, and threats aftercriticizing Olympics-related human rights abusesand other concerns.65