26 June 2007, 12:21
Brinikh: Sochi National Park is being seized under pretext of Olympiad preparation
It is inadmissible for Russia, which has vast northern territories fit for any winter sport, to apply the utmost southern city of the country - Sochi - as a candidate for holding Winter Olympic Games. Moreover, it is a unique place with quite a lot of specially protected natural territories. Valery Brinikh, head of the Maikop City Public Organization of the All-Russia Wildlife Protection Society and a member of the Board of the Ecological Watch for North Caucasus, has expressed this opinion in his interview to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.
"...Sochi will become a huge all-Russian construction site and cease to exist as a balneotherapeutic health resort. For example, for the sake of the Olympiad, they are 'developing' the Imereti Lowland. But this is the unique source of therapeutic muds. That is, by drying the Lowland to launch their large-scale construction, the Olympiad organizers will liquidate the Matsesta medical resorts. In this sense, our protest ceases to be just ecological, it acquires a social aspect."
Author: Aslan Shazzo, CK correspondent
