The Presidents of the Olympic Committees of Russia and Georgia discussed the preparations for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi at the Twelfth International Economic Forum in St Petersburg, which opened on June 7.

Russian Olympic Committee president Leonid Tyagachev said he hoped Georgian and Russian athletes could prepare for the Olympics together in an effort to improve bilateral relations. “I think that two young and nice presidents…will make the right decision,” Tyagachev said.

“It is important for us to cooperate and hold competitions on both Georgian and Russian territory. We will be able to unite through the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014 and do a beautiful thing,” Tyagachev said.

Russian tour operators say the tourists visiting Sochi this year are less compared to other resorts in Krasnodar Region. The building sites and Olympics 2014 construction traffic jams are keeping the tourists away. It is very contradicting, considering the fact that the Olympics work has not yet started and traffic jams are lesser compared to 2007.  Another reason for Sochi’s decreasing popularity  - a holiday here is around 1.5 times more expensive than the neighbouring resorts.