Pussy Riot whipped by Cossacks in Sochi

Pussy Riot band Members have been attacked by Cossacks with batons, pepper spray and whips, as the young women attempted to perform a song near the seaport in the Olympic host city, Sochi.

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In their tall, fur hats and embellished traditional jackets, hundreds of Cossacks are patrolling the streets of Sochi, Russia, as the 2014 Winter Olympic Games approach.

These Russian soldiers, whose ancestry dates back thousands of years, are known in the West for their gravity-defying dance style. Closer to home, the Cossacks have long symbolized rebellion and military might in Western and Southern Russia and Ukraine.

After the Bolsheviks (who later became Communists) came to power, they massacred many Cossacks for their opposition to the revolution. Since the fall of the Soviet Union in the late 20th century, there has been a revival of Cossack culture and pride in Russia and the former Soviet states. Russia has been turning to the Cossacks to help bolster security, even before Sochi was named as the host city for the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Once Russia's henchmen, Cossacks now helping with Olympic security (CNN)

Volunteers smuggle Sochi dogs out of town

Alexei stops in his tracks as he sees a half-breed Labrador snooping around at a cafe's back door.

The dog comes obediently on his whistle. Alexei strokes it and in one swift movement takes it in his arms like a newborn baby.

Rushing past surprised passers-by, Alexei carries the equally-surprised dog to his car parked round the corner and places it gently on the back seat.

Alexei is one of a dozen people in the emerging movement of animal activists in Sochi alarmed by reports that the city has contracted the killing of thousands of stray dogs before and during the Olympic Games. Activists have been picking up dogs from the streets and putting them up at their homes or in temporary shelters before finding an owner elsewhere.

Stray dogs are a common sight on the streets of Russian cities, but with massive construction in the area the street dog population in Sochi and the Olympic park has soared. Useful as noisy, guard dogs, workers feed them to keep them nearby and protect buildings. The dogs — friendly rather than feral — soon lose their value and become strays.

Tonight, a few dogs will be taken on their way to a new life.

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At Sochi, Igor Kharchenko Becomes Second Activist Jailed In 3 Days

An activist who has been monitoring environmental fallout from the Sochi Olympics has been jailed for five days for resisting police, apparently part of a continuing harassment campaign against local activists.

Igor Kharchenko was grabbed on the street in the regional capital of Krasnodar late Tuesday afternoon as he left his house and found his car smashed, an associate, Olga Soldatova, said Wednesday. Police charged him with resisting police orders. Soldatova, who was with him at the police station, said Kharchenko was given a blank sheet of paper instead of a protocol sanctioning his detention.

Kharchenko was put on trial behind closed doors Wednesday and sentenced to five days in jail for disobeying police orders. "They were leading Kharchenko out, and he told us he got 5 days, without a proper trial, lawyer or witnesses," said Soldatova, who was at the courthouse.

Huffington Post

Environmental Activist Jailed During Olympics

An activist who has reported on the environmental fallout from construction for the Sochi Olympics was found guilty Monday of swearing in public and ordered jailed for 15 days, his lawyer said. Yevgeny Vitishko, who is serving a three-year, suspended sentence for spray-painting a fence, had planned on traveling to Sochi to present an environmental report.

Alexander Popkov, a lawyer for Vitishko in Sochi, told The Associated Press that his client was arrested as he was about to leave the town of Tuapse, 72 kilometers (45 miles) northwest of Sochi along the Black Sea coast, after formally filing for permission to travel to the Olympic city. He was found guilty of swearing at a bus stop, a hooliganism charge.

Vitishko and another activist, Suren Gazaryan, were found guilty in 2012 of "deliberate destruction of property" for spray-painting the fence of what they said was a local governor's property in a national forest where construction is forbidden. Both men received a suspended sentence, but Gazaryan was later threatened with more charges and fled Russia. He was granted political asylum in Estonia. Vitishko is a member of the Environmental Watch on the North Caucasus, a group that has been key in shedding light on environmental damage in the Sochi area. The organization is expected to present a new report on Sochi later this month.

Valery Khachaturyan, another activist who was present at Vitishko's trial, told the AP that the court session lasted barely four minutes. The judge refused Vitishko's motion to summon witnesses who said he was swearing in public. Vitishko told the court he was visiting authorities of the penitentiary at the time when the unidentified witness claimed he was swearing at a bus station, Khachaturyan said.

The 15-day sentence means that Vitishko won't be in the Sochi area for most of the Olympics, as well as the torch relay through Tuapse. Although Russians swear abundantly in public, it is considered a misdemeanor and is punishable by a fine or up to 15 days in jail. It is an offense that is rarely enforced.

ABC News -Sochi Watch - thesochiproject.org

How Russia Is Censoring Reporting On Sochi Olympics Controversies

Russian state-controlled media outlets, which include the nation's largest television networks and news agencies, are unlikely to air reports questioning the country’s costly preparations for the games, the concerns of LGBT athletes, or the environmental impact of drastically changing the landscape in Sochi -- essentially, anything that doesn't help project the image Putin wants for the Olympics.

In CPJ’s report, an unnamed Sochi correspondent for a Russian news organization recalled filing three stories to editors in Moscow. The first cast doubt on authorities’ claims about a journalist arrested for narcotics possession, while two others looked at dysfunction at a newly built Sochi residential complex for the games and a major storm expected to hit Sochi. All three were rejected in Moscow.

“You may have a storm, a twister, and even a 9-Richter-scale earthquake; still, we have to write that all skies are clear over Sochi,” the correspondent recalled her editor saying. Censorship in authoritarian countries can be overt, as when negative stories are spiked, or more subtle, creating a climate where journalists self-censor out of fear of risking their livelihoods.

“Nobody calls me; nobody says to me what I should or should not write about,” Svetlana Sagradova, the editor-in-chief of a local business magazine, told CPJ. “But I know what the topics that would anger the authorities are, and I have imposed self-censorship when it comes to those. Because -- one move by the prosecutors -- and my publication could lose its license.”

Since many Sochi-based news outlets receive funding from the government, it’s expected that Olympics stories that upset the Kremlin could lead to funds getting cut off.

The World Post

Russia's Sochi Confronts Massive Problems Behind Olympics Facade

In the village of Akhshtyr, residents complain about an illegal landfill operated by an Olympics contractor that has fouled the air and a stream that feeds the Sochi water supply. Waste from another illegal dump in the village of Loo has slid into a brook that flows into the already polluted Black Sea.

In the village of Mirny, just outside the Olympic Park, rumbling trucks have damaged foundations and caused homes to sink. And right across the railroad tracks from the Akatsy building, another multi-family residence has become prone to flooding after an Olympics-related road was built nearby.

Sochi residents also complain about widespread environmental damage, including the destruction of forests and the contamination of a river running down to the sea. Near the Olympic Park, a popular sandy beach was paved over for the development of a port that was never built.

The Winter Games were intended to showcase the Russia's resurgence from the collapse of the Soviet Union two decades ago. From drab sanatoriums to gleaming ski resorts. From outdoor markets with counterfeit clothes to boutiques filled with international brands. When an AP correspondent asked the Sochi mayor last year what had changed in the city for the better, Anatoly Pakhomov started talking about a new shopping mall and a Louis Vuitton store as symbols of positive change.

huffingtonpost.com - The World Post