The travel

6pm, departure from Lyon under the rain

9pm, Geneva under snow

D one

10am, Geneva, Frankfurt,

6pm, Moscow, loss of the luggage, but we will have them tomorrow morning (except Stéphane which will have them Thursday!!) under snow and hyper cold

j+2

9am, Moscow

midday, Sotchi under the sun, 17°C

1pm, Krasnaya Poliana with a spring weather and large beautiful

 

practically 48 hours with the outward journey and 30 hours for the come back, that done nevertheless a lot of time spent in transport  ...

 

Crossed cities

 

Genève, nothing considering

Frankfurt, nothing considering

Moscou, visit by night, the "place rouge" and the pizzeria which is just beside Night Flight (amateurs will apreciate)

Sotchi, (145 kms length and 300 000 inhabitants) seaside resort keeping of the vestiges of large Russia, with palm trees. The rebuilding of the city is on the way, but the opposition of the Maffia, oil compagnies and gas compagnies delays it

Krasnaya poliana, 5000 inhabitants, 500 m height, future Russian Courchevel , difficult to believe before 10 years. The infrastructures are existing (road, road stations, hotels....) and there are building sites a little everywhere.

 

The resort, 600 m height, 2 shops, 1 carpark, 1 bar with music and vodka in large quantity

Men

 

Utilities

Other utilities

Riders

Snowboarders

The play-ground

 

slopes between 800 and 1300 m with tops up to 2500 m, near the "black sea". The snow has a very particular, dense and very pleasant consistency for snowboarding. The southern slopes, good in spring and the north slopes always overhung by big size cornices , a forest where the trees were planted by thinking that one day there would be snowboarders... the paradise in fact.

Chair lifts, and armchair lifts

 

-          1 chair-lift, 4 sections, worthy of the Italian chair-lifts  ! who gives access to an interesting field off pist but, be carefull  ! (Marius fell off the chair-lift, fortunately in the net which he used as trampoline for finally landing 4 m lower, I believe that Paul pushed him but I am not sure  ; -)

-          MI8, a dragonfly of several tons and 20 m of scale which can land really everywhere, 2 pilots and 1 mechanic, Marius did not fall, fortunately  !!!

 

Active safety (for 12 riders)

 

1 guide of Chamonix and 1 Russian guide

We had brought our own snowguider Bazu (maximum securisation of the slopes, special choice of the slopes and trajectories   "snowboard  "...)

He made a straight like the best pro-riders, full speed.

 

Lodging

 

The hotels are all 4 * and our, in Krasnaya Poliana has swimming pool, sauna, medical man (a little rough with its wood sticks for acupuncture). Environment is sympathetic there and French people was not made put outside in spite of a large drinking evening for the festival of the woman.

 

The evening

 

In Marc Testut's restaurant, there was every evening the beer or/and vodka festival, and when the girls of Sotchi go up, that moves, and it was expensive for some of them....

 

The festival of the woman

I don't know which was the happier during the festival, the women or the men  ?
The photographs were censured by the wives...

Last image of a super trip