Cossacks patrol the streets

Restaurants and bars will be smoke-free

In Russia, you're never far from a cigarette lighter. Back in October, that was a lucky strike for the Olympics when a man whipped one from his pocket and quickly replenished the Olympic flame, which had blown out in the wind. But the Sochi Olympics have committed to a smoke-free event, making it the 12th Games to do so. This will be a trial in a country still in love with smoking -- nearly 60% of adult males and 40% of the total adult population admitted to smoking regularly in 2012, according to the World Health Organization.

The sale of cigarettes and smoking itself have been banned inside any Sochi Olympic venue, with the exception of specially marked smoke zones. Smoking is also forbidden at bars and restaurants within the Olympic Park -- a step ahead of the nation. Russia barred smoking in public spaces including airports and train stations last June, and will expand the banto include cafés, bars and restaurants in June 2014. It will also impose a minimum price (so long $2 packs), all in an effort to quell smoking-related deaths in Russia, which totaled 400,000 in 2012.

No gay people in Sochi? This protestor would presumably disagree.

Sochi has gay bars

There are no gay people in Sochi, according to mayor Anatoly Pakhomov. Curiously enough, however, there are gay bars -- at least one that's out of the closet, that is.Sochi's Cabaret Mayak, catering to both gay and straight clients, features a midnight show by transvestite cabaret singers.

Despite homosexuality being a federal crime in Russia until 1993, Sochi was a gay hub during Soviet times for its relaxed beachfront vibe and distance from major metropolises within the Iron Curtain. In July, President Putin signed into law a ban on "gay propaganda," criminalizing the spread of information on "nontraditional sexual relations" among minors. He's since lowered his sword, saying gay people will be welcome at the 2014 Olympic Games but adding in a January 17 comment to a group of Olympic volunteers: "Please leave the children at peace."

Some of the first space monkeys were trained at Sochi. Lucky them.

5. Sochi trained Russia's first space monkeys

It's a symbol of the 1960s Cold War space race etched into our collective imagination: a monkey, in full astronaut attire, manning a spacecraft. Leading the way in Russia's monkey-manned space technology? Sochi, of course. Russia's first space monkeys, Abrek and Bion, were trained at a Sochi "apery" for their seven-day mission in December of 1983.

Cossacks patrol the streets

Their tall lamb's wool hats, emblazoned coats and flamboyant dance style have earned Cossacks a place in the world's vision of Russia, with help from Russian literary icons Leo Tolstoy and Alexander Pushkin. Now, the once feared horsemen who secured the frontier for Russian tsars have joined forces with police patrolling Sochi.

Russia and the Cossacks have a patchy history. After centuries as allies of Russia, the east Slavic people suffered harshly under the communists for their opposition to the Red Army. But since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cossacks have gradually returned to popular favor in Russia. Echoing the mid-19th-century Caucasian War when Cossacks served as border guards, current governor Aleksandr Tkachev of Sochi's Krasnodar region hired a thousand fur-clad Cossacks to help to secure the Olympic Games. Cossacks make up only a small fractionof the approximately 40,000 security forces at the Olympics.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 836