Opening of Winter Olympics in Russia to cost $52 million

The opening ceremony of the Sochi Olympics will cost Russia about $52 million. The nonprofit agency for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Games will receive a subsidy for preparing and organizing the events. The bulk of the money will be spent on technical facilities and foreign designers.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak said that it was decided to assign 1.6 billion rubles to prepare opening and closing ceremonies of the Sochi Olympics. The loan makes up 1.6 billion rubles ($ 52 million). For comparison - the opening and closing of the Olympic Games in London in 2012 cost about $65 million, so Russian specialists have something to look up to.

According to publications in the Russian media, the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics 2014 is scheduled for February 7, 2014. It is planned that characters of Russian fairy tales, the Russian troika of Gogol's "Dead Souls", Peter the Great leading the fleet of five ships will appear on three stages. From the Imperial Russia, viewers will be taken to the XX century. Fifteen buildings will appear on the stadium, as well as six locomotives, six bridges and sculptures. The opening ceremony will end with the advent of the Olympic flame. The above-mentioned nonprofit agency chaired by Konstantin Ernst also will organize the opening and closing of the Paralympic Games to be held in Sochi on 7-16 March 2014.

Students of circus and dance schools will also participate in the opening ceremony.

Experts already say that the Winter Olympics in Russia's Sochi in 2014 will be the most expensive Olympics in history. Sochi 2014 may cost more than $30 billion in total.

Valentin Gridin