Early this year, 24 hours before the International Olympic Committee inspectors landed in Sochi, the Black Sea-resort town which will be hosting the 2014 Winter Olympics, there was an emergency meeting held in several local schools. Teachers were instructed to put on their best clothes, pack their best luggage and hand-pick five students each. Instead of going to class the next day, they were told to arrive at the local airport and stay there for a full day, posing as tourists and making the airport look packed with travelers.

There is one place in Russia where democracy is alive and well, and that place is Sochi, the Black Sea resort-town of yore that will host the 2014 Winter Olympics.

As the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in a ski suit stands on a mountaintop, he stares thoughtfully into the distance. He is surrounded by beaming compatriots and the natural beauty of Krasnaya Polyana – the view of the Caucasus mountain tops swelling from the Black Sea resort of Sochi.