The fireworks are over. The streets are quiet. Now, Sochi, Russia must figure out how to move forward without a clear plan for doing so.
Sochi used to be a relatively peaceful resort town, surrounded by a marsh and snow-topped mountains, but that all changed when it won its Olympic bid. The marsh was trampled by construction necessary for the games. Hotels and stadiums materialized. An international outcry saved the city's stray dogs from a mass killing. All these events have left problems that are now up to Sochi to solve.
See also: Glee Over Sochi Problems Is a Problem of Its Own
How much has construction hampered the surrounding environment? Who will fill all these hotels and stadiums? What will happen to the dogs now that the international attention is fading?
When it comes to the environment, the damage is already done.
"Whenever you're converting green space to some kind of human settlement, there's going to be lasting impacts of some kind," Allen Hershkowitz, a Ph.D scientist at the National Resources Defense Council , told Mashable.
New roads and buildings, while potentially a good thing for a city's infrastructure, fundamentally alter how water is absorbed, especially in marshy terrain such as Sochi.
"That impervious surface that they put in is going to persist, even if they don't maintain roads and don't maintain any of those structures," said Joseph Kiesecker, a lead scientist for The Nature Conservancy. "You basically have to build a base and a bed in which to place a road on, and so that can have a dramatic impact on how water moves across the land surface."
Marshes act as a sponge, and they're meant to soak up excess water and release it slowly. Concrete and asphalt prevent the marsh from functioning normally, and that can lead to runoff, erosion and more floods during storms.
The railroad that now runs from Sochi up to the surrounding mountains will cause similar damage, and perhaps permanently alter the migratory patterns of local animals such as bears and turs, animals that look like a cross between a goat and an antelope.
The $51 billion poured into Sochi for the Olympics made it the most expensive games in history, and all that money and construction was meant to turn Sochi into a resort that was packed year-round, but the chances of that happening don't look good.
Hotel occupancy rates are expected to plummet by between 35% and 40%, according to a report released by Moody’s Investors Service. That's to be expected following an event such as the Olympics, but it's worrisome when the same Moody's report estimates that Sochi needs to double its number of visitors per year to around five million if it hopes to keep all its hotels filled.
All those people Sochi wants to attract will have plenty of other travel options nearby, too. If they're looking for a snowier environment, Innsbruck, Austria is just an hour away by plane. Anyone looking for a summer trip in the region might try Cesme, Turkey.
Without a surge of tourists, Sochi runs the risk of turning from a resort town into a ghost town, much like other Olympic cities such as Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina that became a war zone after hosting the games.
And it doesn't help that the Russian government has no clear plan for what to do about the potential problems.
Just before the Games began, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev called for plans for what to do with Sochi following the Olympics. Officials have thrown around ideas from turning the city into a world-renowned resort town to making it a gambling paradise, but nothing is definite. That's an issue because, according to the Associated Press, the city's upkeep is going to cost around $2 billion per year, and Sochi's post-Olympics attractions were supposed to generate a good chunk of that funding.
Last year, Medvedev drew up plans to convert some of the arenas into an exhibition hall, concert center, mall and more, but those plans aren't definite, either.
As for the dogs, there's some good news.
When the world found out that Sochi had contracted a pest control firm to cull many of Sochi's estimated 4,000 strays, there was an international outcry to save them. That led to the start of Povodog Sochi, a dog shelter funded by Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska that sits on the outskirts of the city. It sprung up in early February and just recently built another outpost around Sochi, according to NBC. Though it can't handle all 4,000 dogs, Povodog Sochi and other shelters are providing homes for those that they can, and they're arranging for the dogs to be adopted by people around the world.
And there are a few other bright spots, too. The Rosa Khutor ski resort, with its 48 miles of slopes, 18 ski lifts and billionaire financier, seems to have the infrastructure and the means to weather any coming troubles, and when the World Cup comes to Russia in 2018, the event will use some of Sochi's stadiums.
Right now, there is still time for the city and federal government to figure out a plan for the Sochi. Much of the natural appeal has been paved over, but the infrastructure is there. Now the city just needs a plan to get people to visit and make it all worthwhile.
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