First Event of Sochi Olympics: The Hotel Construction Sprint

Much of Sochi is a work in progress, and parts of it look at least a dozen all-nighters away from completion. There are unfinished hotels, half-finished stores and a mall where the only shop that is open and thriving is a Cinnabon.

Wander the premises over the course of a day and you also get a palpable sense of spectacular ambition, reflected in millions of square feet of new construction, as well as transportation hubs with spiffy trains and shiny buses. You will see an Olympic Park where sporting venues look reassuringly ready.

The combination is singular — an enterprise that is epic, pristine and in many places bewilderingly flawed.

Start with the public accommodations near what is called the Coastal Cluster, home to five ice sports arenas and the stadium for the opening ceremony. To appreciate the hotels in this area, it is probably a good idea to think of them not as hotels but rather as a rare opportunity to experience life in a centrally planned, Soviet-style dystopia

Only then will you understand, perhaps even enjoy, the peculiar mix of grandiosity and bungling that define these buildings. Though called hotels, they look like austere, upscale apartments inspired by the Eastern Bloc — Bauhaus meets the Super 8. The exteriors are monolithic and nearly identical, except for sections of paint, in shades of yellow, taupe and mauve.

None of the buildings have names. Instead, they are identified by numbers, and as of last weekend, many of the numbers had not yet arrived. Or they had arrived and had yet to be affixed to the buildings. Instead, they were printed on a piece of paper and taped to a wall.

Breakfast is available in Building 10. But not only is Building 10 hard to find, there is no evidence that it houses a restaurant. The place, which has no name, makes subterranean hipster bars in Brooklyn seem desperate for attention. You figure out that you’re in the right place only by walking around Building 10 a few times and spotting, through a window, a woman in an apron.

On the way in, you see a man on a ladder, fixing something. This is a common sight: Last-minute touch-ups have been a feature of Olympic Games for seemingly as long there have been screwdrivers. But the list in Sochi seems extraordinarily large. There are unopened boxes of heating and air-conditioning parts and other essential hardware all over the place. On Sunday, a man in a lobby was drilling into a ceiling, working above and just to the left of a blinking Christmas tree.

A Christmas tree?

 “It’s Russia,” said one of many young women who work here. She shrugged.

As an all-purpose explanation for many of the head-scratchers here, “It’s Russia” will do. It would have been a good answer when this reporter woke his first night, at 3 in the morning, to find a man with a Scandinavian accent in his bedroom. This gentleman wanted to know why someone was sleeping in the suite he had been assigned to and for which he had been given a key.

Fair question, and just one of dozens raised by these accommodations. When will the elevator start elevating again? Why is the word “Mystery” on the bottom of the television? Is that the brand name? Or a sly invitation to wonder why it does not work? And finally, when will the front desk have a system so that it does not give out keys to occupied rooms?

After breakfast, jump on a bus to the main media center. Like much of this city, the bus has the Sochi Olympics slogan emblazoned on its side: “Hot. Cool. Yours.” It sounds like a second-place pitch for the McDLT, the short-lived McDonald’s sandwich that promised to keep the burger side warm and the lettuce side chilled. The drive takes you past the odd insta-metropolis that this area has become, a hodgepodge of old churches, sleek industrial office buildings and freshly paved highways. You also pass a lot of dirt fields, dotted with newly planted trees, kept upright with twine.

From the media center, a bus takes you to the Olympic Park, which is open for sneak peeks and team warm-ups. The venues here may be the most impressive part of the Games, and are surely the most important. If the events go off without a snag, none of the other delays and none of the last-minute jackhammering will be remembered.

While some of the housing is reminiscent of a play that opened before it had enough time to rehearse, most of the venues are prepared: the Ice Cube Curling Center; Shayba Arena, which will host hockey; and Adler Arena, where speedskating will take place. The one minor exception is the Bolshoy Ice Dome, where this reporter somehow pulled the handles off two doors.

Paging a carpenter. Section 106A, please.

A couple of stray dogs are trotting around the Bolshoy. The animals have attracted a lot of attention, mostly because of reports that the city has plans to kill them ahead of the Games. But these animals may be more cunning than their would-be captors. One stray managed to penetrate the heavily secured perimeter of the media center, giving the impression that it had somehow disguised itself as a reporter.

The other half of the Olympics, where snow-related events will take place, is a 40-minute bus ride into the mountains. The journey rolls through a series of lengthy tunnels that were carved out for the Games, and whatever the environmental impact of this construction, it is hard to argue with the results. The trip is smooth.

What the Russians have built here in what is known as the mountain cluster is akin to a mid- to high-end ski resort, with shops, restaurants and hotels. Or that is what it will be when it is completed. A striking photograph of a model is displayed on a panel of the multiple-story Gorky Gorod Mall, and she is delivering her best come-hither look under the words “opening soon.” But for now, there is little hither to come to.

The mall’s doors are open, though the individual stores are not, and someone in a bear costume is dancing on the first floor to some piped-in music. But the ambience is less celebratory than anxious. Shoppers are vastly outnumbered by men wheeling pallets up ramps, or peeling plastic off glass displays, or unboxing products. The Benetton clothing store looks as if it needs another week before it can open its doors.

The situation is even worse on a gondola ride up the mountain, to a village that everyone calls 960, the number of meters it sits above sea level. A few hotels are here, in a setting so remote and with a vista so gorgeous that it seems more apt for a James Bond villain. And maybe a Bond villain would have had an easier time with construction. Walk down the village’s brick street, and you see luxury hotels with lobbies stuffed with inventory, frenetic employees and unnerved hospitality professionals.

One hotel that is open, though has yet to accept guests, is a Swissotel. There were supposed to be two here, but one fell so far behind schedule that management decided to pull workers from the site and concentrate on finishing one on time. Guests will arrive Thursday, and the place should be fully booked by Feb. 15, said Oliver Kuhn, a Swissotel manager.

What was the delay?

 “Rain. A lot of rain this summer,” he said with a wry grin that said rain was not the whole story. What is the rest of the story?

 “You’ll have to investigate,” he said.

Articles suggesting that the Games are not ready are a now familiar trope of pre-Olympic news coverage, but typically those articles cease in the weeks and days before the torch arrives. Sochi is cutting it close.

Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, had seven years to build these Olympics, and he staked a record $51 billion and his own reputation to realize his vision. There are life-after-the-Games plans for many of the buildings and sporting arenas, but as with every Olympics, the world’s attention will be trained here for mere weeks. With such a tiny window of life for Sochi on the international stage, one would expect that deadlines would have been met months ago.

So far, the inconveniences have mostly affected the news media, perhaps the least sympathetic of the participants here. But the parents of athletes are on the way, and there is some trepidation among Olympic officials that outrage will flow if these people receive the no-hot-water treatment. Or if their hotel rooms are not ready.

Kuhn, the Swissotel manager, seemed surprisingly unstressed under the circumstances. Sitting on a bright purple chair beside an elevator, he watched supplies arrive in his lobby.

 “I just came from opening a hotel in Ulan Bator,” he said of the remote Mongolian city, “so I’m used to it.”