These images are ©Thomas Dworzak National Geographic and, with the excerpt below, are from the January issue of National Geographic magazine.
Russia is an empire no more. Like other great and large nations, however, it still aches to be one. It must find an outlet for its urges, and over two weeks in February, it will have it. Through force of Russian will, the Winter Olympics are coming to an unlikely location.
The Sochi Games on the Black Sea coast will take place in the backyard of a recent war with Georgia, on the site of what many call the genocide of a people (the Circassians), and in the orbit of an Islamic insurgency (in Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetiya, and Kabardino-Balkariya). The state has resurrected a fearsome militia, the Cossacks, to help keep the peace that some might design to upend.
Allegations of graft circulate widely, high temperatures threaten the snowfall necessary for competition, and activists have called for a boycott over anti-gay legislation enacted by the Russian parliament. In response Putin has banned protests and rallies in Sochi during the games.
