Residents of Imereti Lowland in Sochi have 3-day electricity outage

About three thousand people – residents of the streets named Nizhnyaya Imeretinskaya, Imeretinskaya, Staroshkolnaya, Staroklubnaya, Uritskogo Tsimlyanskaya, Tavricheskaya and Polevaya in Sochi – are without electricity since March 7 and get ready to protests.

Oleg Silkov, a resident of the houses remaining without power, said that he could not get through and find out when the supplies will be resumed: "The grid administration has a voice mailbox connected, while the Mayoralty staff says that they are not aware of the problem."

Residents of Imereti Lowland said that their houses are cold. According to Olesya Popova, her baby became ill from the cold and is constant crying; there is no way even to make tea. Irina Maslova has added that she has to sleep with her outerwear on.

Alexander Zhigalko, the head of the administration of the Adler District of Sochi, has also confirmed that the houses located in the zone of Olympic construction have no power supplies.

According to his story, the emergency was caused by a break of a power cable, which occurred in the area of Krasnaya Gorka Street, where the work is underway to build a water intake from the Psou River.

Mr Zhigalko explained that such cases, when contractors from other regions tear off and break underground utilities, are very frequent. "This is because," he said, "the workers who build the Olympic facilities have no maps of underground power and water networks; they have to work 'blind'." The official has explained that he had reported the accident to the department for construction under the administration of the Krasnodar Territory and asked to take actions.

He has added that power specialists are making repairs and plan to restore supplies by this evening.