Sochi residents blame bureaucrats for ignoring problem of regular flooding

Officials of the Sochi Mayoralty fail to fulfil their "pre-Olympic" promises and do not solve the problem of water drainage, local residents assert. Those of them who live in the neighbourhood called "Mirny" state that the Mayoralty not simply ignores the townspeople's demand to build gullies, but tries to challenge the need of them.

At night on November 11, heavy rains flooded Sochi.

"On November 11, Mirny was flooded again. Water came into our house; we literally sink under water after every rain," Marina Ovanesyan, a resident of Mirny, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"Crews of the Ministry of Emergencies (MfE) kept pumping water from houses and yards till evening. However, officials continue evading their obligations to us. In particular, they refuse to equip our neighbourhood with gullies. These works should have been done before the 2014 Winter Olympics," Marina says.

She added that in early September 16 residents of Mirny complained about Mayoralty's inaction to the court.

"On September 23, the court ruled in our favour, but on October 23 the Mayoralty appealed against the ruling," said Marina Ovanesyan.

"The appeal indicates that the Mayoralty doesn't intend to correct its mistakes made during the construction of the sewage system," she concluded.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.