Good read.

There is a very interesting read on ESPN if you have the time for a long feature piece. I think it's a very accurate (from what I've gathered) depection of Putin and the way he controls Russia.

Russia seems to function as a modern country but is led by someone who is a few steps short of a dictator. What Putin wants, Putin gets. And that includes this Olympics games.

Sochi was previously more known as a vacation destination for the rich in Russia. Not a winter destination, but a summer one. While it gets plenty cold in the winter, as I can't imagine a place during winter in Russia that doesn't get cold, it's not your average winter Olympic host city.

But the IOC doesn't care about that. They only care that you are going to do what's necessary to fund, build and successfully host an Olympic games. Therefore Sochi has been transformed over the last seven years.

There were no major roads or highways leading in to Sochi in 2007. No hotels. No venues. Literally everything in the city has been built for the games. It is not the classic, historic sites you saw transformed in London. Russia has spent an estimated $50 billion building these games. The most expensive of any winter site.

To be fair, the winter games are built a little differently from the summer games. Not to mention that dozens of buildings are built in preparation for any games. Often for the summer games, the main structure built is the venue for the ceremonies and the athlete village. For the winter games, it's more important to have a site within driving distance already capable of hosting the outdoor events and then build the necessary venues for the indoor events in the actual host city for the games. I witnessed this in Torino. So many of the buildings were built obviously for the Olympics and the Olympics only. The curling venue was a random stop on the train to the mountains. It was like, "Hey, we could throw people off here and build a site for curling." I'd be shocked if that curling building still exists eight years later.

But the difference with Sochi is that everything in the town is new and for the Olympics. It's a Disney World monoply type city now. Once you enter the "coastal cluster" of venues and Olympic village, you are stuck with the few food and entertainment options. It doesn't have the feel of visiting and exploring in a place like in Vancouver or Nagano. It is just the Olympic competitions and that's pretty much it.

So the question is, "Will it be safe?" Putin has pretty much risked his entire international reputation on these games. He wanted these games to show off Russia and its "progress." To show that Russia is not the Russia you still think it is from the Cold War. He wants everyone to be in awe of him and think it would be great to live in a country with him as your President. It is essential to him that these games go off without a hitch. If they don't, I don't want to be the person responsible in his eyes. It matters not to him whether people have a good time. He cares that it is portrayed successfully to people around the world and that Russia wins gold medals. It's similar to the way China cared about the success of the Beijing games in the way that they wanted to change the public perception. It was the same "win at all costs mentality."

The games are about four days away now. All we can do is wait and see how it all unfolds.