As an Executive Team member, McKinnon will be responsible for the growth of Atlas' business travel program offerings through developing strategies that align with customer success journeys. 17, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) - Atlas Travel is pleased to welcome Kerin McKinnon as Vice President, Business Development. Instead, the number of cases of human rights abuses in the North Caucasus submitted to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has soared.MARLBOROUGH, Mass., Jan. The region was the Olympic organizers’ worst nightmare: would they succeed in keeping attacks at bay? In the run-up to the Games, local rulers were given carte blanche to restore order. After Russia’s victory in the Second Chechen War, separatists withdrew into the forests and mountains, from where they orchestrated all the major terrorist attacks that have plagued Russia in recent decades. Stalin deported five ethnic groups to Central Asia and populated the region with “friendly peoples.” Immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union, war and terror ignited the region again. Between 18, it fought the Caucasian Wars that led to definitive colonization of the area. Russia has tried to subdue the North Caucasus for 300 years.
On the other side of the mountains from Sochi is the North Caucasus, the poorest and most violent part of the Russian Federation. But the border with Russia was sealed during the Games, leaving Abkhazia more isolated than ever. The Olympics could have brought Abkhazia tourists, money, and fame. Peace with Georgia seems far off, and the refugee problem continues to hang over the country. Economic developments benefit only a small elite. Despite official independence, Abkhazia remains impoverished. Only in 2008 was it officially recognized by a curious combination of nations: Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Tuvalu, Nauru, and Vanuatu. Many Georgian refugees still live in appalling conditions in Georgia, and Abkhazia stands empty and ruined. In 1993, a bloody civil war broke out between the Georgians and Abkhazians and more than 200,000 people fled. Abkhazia is a land of tea plantations and mandarin trees, a subtropical paradise where Stalin, Beria, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev once owned country houses. Less than five kilometers from the site of the 2014 Winter Olympics is the small country of Abkhazia, once part of Georgia. With the Games completed, the city is intended to be Russia’s new sports and conference capital. A budget of $12 billion was initially set aside for the enormous operation, but the final cost is estimated at $50 billion, around half of which disappeared into the pockets of contractors and subcontractors. The existing facilities did not meet the standards of the International Olympic Committee and the entire Olympics infrastructure had to be built from scratch: airports, commercial ports, motorways, tunnels, ski resorts, ice rinks, hotels, and villages. To accommodate the Olympics, the city was turned upside down. Like any resort, Sochi has traditionally been deserted in the winter. The smell of sunscreen, sweat, alcohol, and roasting meat pervades the air.
People from across the former Soviet Union associate the coastal resort with beach holidays and first loves. It is famous for its subtropical climate, hotels, and sanatoria. Sochi is Russia’s Costa del Sol, but even cheaper.
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