Cyrill Vatomsky, Where All Politics Are Global

When US President George Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Kennebunkport last week, a lot has been said about low expectations for the meeting. Every new agency of note and every pundit knew the meeting was not going to result in anything of substance.

At the time my personal view was that Putin was trying to feel out what it would be like when he is no longer the President of Russia. Putin is no democrat and he had successfully illustrated it with his domestic and foreign policy. Russia never had a respected former leader with a possible exception of Yeltsin, who was pretty much removed from public and especially political life after he had appointed Putin as his heir. Unlike Western Democracies where former leaders are not overthrown failures, feudal societies rarely respect those that are no longer in power.

When Putin became the democratically appointed President, he immediately proceeded to set up friendly personal relationships with his peers: Schroeder, Berlusconi, Blair, Bush, Chirac. With exception of Tony Blair, Putin was quite successful in this task. Gerhard, Silvio and Jacques are no longer his peers but they do not have to worry much about their future. Well, Silvio might, and Gerhard got himself a cushion job with Gazprom. Bush is the only one left and he will still be President after Putin steps down next spring.  And so my opinion was that the trip to Kennebunkport  was exactly what it looked like - a private meeting sprinkled with some new initiatives just to cover its nature. Putin offered a Russian radar, Bush said in essence even if we take it, we will still deploy stuff in Eastern Europe.

I have not given any of this any further thought until I stumbled over a very lengthy Kommersant account of what was going on at the IOC get together in Guatemala: Russia's surprise coup in securing the 2014 Winter Olympics  to be held in Sochi, on the Black Sea Coast.

I was in Russia when the idea of having 2014 Olympics was first floated by the Kremlin.  Ian Pryde via Ria Novosty places the 20014 Olympics in Sochi in broader context.

Putin was not only the key to the success in Guatemala, but was also the driving force behind Sochi's nomination in the first place.

It was Putin's  project, it was his child, his personal legacy. He came to Guatemala to be the main spokesperson for the Sochi bid. 

Путин в ночь прилета в Гватемалу из США после встречи с Жаком Рогге два с лишним часа ужинал с президентами самых влиятельных федераций МОК и их женами.
The night of arrival to Guatemala from the US after meeting with Jacques Rogge Putin spent two and a half hours dining with presidents of most influential IOC Federations and their wives.

But until I read one little line in the Kommersant article, I never thought of putting the two events together. Here is the background first:

"The main thing," said Svetlana Zhurova, a Russian gold medalist in ice skating at the Games in Turin, "is to get to the second round… There Europe will help us. Europe will vote for Europe!"

The voting was quick, and short work was made of the Austrians. It later emerged that Salzburg had received 25 votes, Sochi 34, and Pyeongchang 36.

Americans?

Mr. Putin asked for a personal audience with Mr. Bush while on the way to Guatemala. Could it be that this was the main subject of the meeting. Could Bush offer any assistance in securing American votes?

This victory means a great deal to Putin and his future. He could get himself a job bigger then chairmanship of Gazprom. According to the same Ria Novosti article:

In fact, major Russian state and private companies such as Russian Railways, Gazprom and Interros are already hard at work in developing the region's infrastructure, and with gold and foreign currency reserves now at over USD400 billion and rising, Russia will hardly have any problem finding the money.

Putin can be the Olympic Tzar for Russia, he will be constantly in the news, he will  be able to  play out populism of the Olympic hysteria to exert powers over his own successor and all state monopolies. A perfect position for the person that needs to sit out four years before he runs for the President again in 2012.