Few in the west seemed to notice when the International Olympic Committee(IOC) decided to award the 2014 Winter Games to the Russian town of Sochi. Yet this choice if full of geopolitical meaning.  President Vladimir Putin flew to Guatemala to address IOC delegates before they voted, and surprised them by speaking in French and - for the first time ever in public - English. Later he declared that Sochi's victory was "not only a recognition of Russia's achievements in sports but also an assessment of our country". Sochi, located between the Caucasus and the Black Sea, has poor roads, one old resort and out-of-date facilities. In the next five years it will be transformed by a burst of constructions unprecedented  in the history of Russia. Winning the Olympic bid has given Russian politicians a focus, a $ 12 billion project they can use to showcase their power and that of their country. Several have already announced bid investments in Sochi. Olympic planners will have to assure that the Sochi project dose not collapse under the weight of corruption , which Russian officials are famous for. With many eyes watching, they will also have to green landscape around Sochi, where some of Europe's last wild bears roar in primitive mountain forests, with more care for the environment than Russia has traditionally shown. Sochi also sits on the edge of a region that has been boiling with ethnic  and political tensions since the collapse of the Soviet Union. In past centuries it was ruled by both Georgia and Abkhazia, which is now a breakaway region of Georgia. Russia backs the rebel regime in Abkhazia, but as the Olympics approach, it may feel it needs to be careful. The president of Georgia, Mikhail Saakashvili, might have bitterly protested  the Olympic Committee's decision to award the Winter Games to a country that actively supports rebels within Georgia. Instead he was wise enough to realize that this event could push Russia toward compromise  solutions in Abkhazia and perhaps even in Ossetia, Nagorno Karabakh and Chechnya. Although Sochi has poor transportation and unsatisfying facilities, holding the 1014 Winter Olympic Games there obviously gives it a chance   _  .
to ask the IOC for more money to break away from Georgia to challenge the world to develop