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Krasnaya Polyana and Rosa Khutor: why we removed these materialsAIIllustrative image: AI-generated
Editorial Position
Updated:8 min1,654 words

Krasnaya Polyana and Rosa Khutor: why we removed these materials

Here there used to be four articles about the ski cluster near Sochi: hotels with pools, accommodation next to the lifts, twenty-five places in the surrounding area, and an overview of winter recreation in the valley. All four have been removed from every language version of the site.

The answer to the question people usually come here with is short. A reader from the European Union has no reason to expect to ski there today: there has been no direct air service between the EU and Russia since February 2022, airports in the south of the country have operated intermittently for years, and since January 1, 2026, EU nationals are prohibited from providing services related to tourism activities in Russia. We do not publish instructions for getting around this.

💡 At a glance:

  • which four articles were removed and what they covered
  • what is known about the cost of preparing for the 2014 Games and from which source
  • why there is no direct air service and what that looks like in 2026
  • which European ski regions remain in our live sections
  • Last updated: 09/2026

Why we deleted these guides

Four texts were selling the same thing: the legacy of the 2014 Winter Games as a ready-made resort. Lifts, slope-side hotels, pools, a winter weekend. Not one of them said a word about what that preparation led to, or about how to get there from Europe today.

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, and from that point on our winter articles described a resort that an EU reader has no direct route to. All four have been taken down, and the old URLs redirect here.

The economic argument is the same as throughout this section. The share of oil and gas revenue in the Russian budget has fallen to roughly 22 percent, while the share of non-oil-and-gas revenue, which includes taxes from the hotel and resort sector, has risen to roughly 78 percent (Centre for Eastern Studies OSW, 09.12.2025). That means a guest's spending on the slopes ends up in the part of the budget that now carries more weight than before the war.

What is known about the Games' legacy

One fact about this resort is documented and worth stating, because our previous texts did not mention it.

Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister of Russia, published a report in 2013 according to which Russian officials and businesspeople siphoned off up to 30 billion dollars from the preparations for the Sochi Olympics. The final cost of the Games came to about 51 billion dollars, making them the most expensive in history (Al Jazeera, 30.05.2013).

We present this as the content of a specific report, naming the author, year, and amount, and we add nothing to it. We have not conducted and are not conducting our own investigation into the Games, and we have no intention of turning a text about skiing into such an investigation.

It is also worth naming what happened immediately afterwards. The Games ended in February 2014, and already on March 27, 2014, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 68/262 "Territorial integrity of Ukraine" by one hundred votes in favor, eleven against, and fifty-eight abstentions: it affirms the territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders and declares invalid the so-called referendum of March 16, 2014 in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol (text of resolution A/RES/68/262, UN Digital Library). Further in this text we refer to the peninsula as defined by that document: Russian-occupied Crimea (Ukraine). Between the showcase we described as a resort and the start of what continues to this day, just over a month passed.

Why there is no direct route there

On February 28, 2022, the European Union adopted Council Regulation (EU) 2022/334, which prohibited Russian air carriers from landing in, taking off from, or overflying EU territory; the ban also applies to aircraft registered in Russia or controlled by Russian persons and companies, including under code-sharing agreements (EUR-Lex). On the same day, Russia announced mirror restrictions on the use of its airspace for aircraft from 36 countries, including EU member states, the United Kingdom, and the United States (Leiden Law Blog).

Inside the country, the picture is no better. Since the start of the full-scale invasion, 11 airports in southern and central Russia have suspended operations, among them Krasnodar, Anapa, Rostov-on-Don, Gelendzhik, and the airports of Russian-occupied Crimea (Ukraine); the closure was presented as temporary and then repeatedly extended (The Moscow Times, 26.04.2024). Partial reopenings began only in 2024 and 2025, and in May 2026, 13 airports in southern Russia were closed at the same time (The Moscow Times, 11.09.2025; NV, 05.2026).

We deliberately do not answer the question of whether the airport in the city nearest to the resort is operating on any given day. We have no verified source with current schedules, and a guess in a text that people read before traveling is unacceptable. That is the reason there will be no transport instructions in this section at all.

What this means for you

Item

Status 09/2026

Source

Flights by Russian carriers to the EU

Banned by Regulation 2022/334 since 28.02.2022

EUR-Lex

Russia's mirror restrictions

Announced the same day for vessels from 36 countries

Leiden Law Blog

Airports in southern Russia

11 closed since 02.2022, partial reopenings in 2024 and 2025, 13 closed simultaneously in 05.2026

The Moscow Times, NV

Services related to tourism in Russia

Banned by Article 5n(2) of Regulation 833/2014 as amended by Regulation 2025/2033, transition period ended 01.01.2026

EUR-Lex, Skadden

Paying with an EU card

Impossible since 10.03.2022

The Moscow Times

German Foreign Office advisory

"Vor Reisen in die Russische Föderation wird gewarnt"

Auswärtiges Amt

We do not describe routes, connections, or payment methods. That is trip preparation, and we do not cover it.

Where to go instead

The request was about skiing, lifts right outside the window, and a hotel with a pool after the slopes. The live sections of the site answer that: Austria with its alpine valleys, Switzerland, France, Italy, and Andorra. The legacy format of major winter competitions exists there too, and you can get there from Germany by train or a short flight.

The general explanation of the editorial decision for the entire section is collected in the section hub. Adjacent texts: our position on Sochi and Adler attractions and our position on seaside hotels.

Where we stand

We believe that a resort built for major international competitions does not become a permanently neutral place because of that. In our assessment, our previous texts used the valley's Olympic reputation as a ready-made mark of quality. At the same time, they were silent about the facts outlined above.

We do not name a single hotel or a single ski lift. A named object in an explanatory text still reads as a recommendation.

We write about a state and its policies, not about people based on their passport. There are people in Russia who spoke out against the war and received prison sentences for it. Our decision not to publish guides to Russia concerns money, sanctions, and reader safety, not nationality.

Publication date: September 3, 2026. Last updated: September 3, 2026.

⁉️🤔 Frequently asked questions

Are you accusing anyone of embezzlement?

No. We are summarizing the content of the 2013 report, citing the author, year, and amount as published by Al Jazeera. We make no accusations of our own against specific individuals and draw no conclusions about anyone's guilt.

Isn't sport outside politics?

We are not writing about sports and are not evaluating competitions. We are writing about a travel genre: our texts suggested going skiing and buying services in a country that is waging war against a neighboring state.

Why was the winter recreation guide also deleted? It was only about nature, wasn't it?

Because the decision concerns the function of the text. All four pieces prepared a specific winter trip: where to stay, what to do, what to expect from the season. That is the function we removed.

Will you bring these pieces back?

We make no promises with dates. The decision will be revisited when the grounds for it, as set out in this text, change.

In short

All four pieces about the ski cluster near Sochi have been deleted in full. The 2013 report on the Games' preparation and the absence of direct flights are discussed above. Starting January 1, 2026, persons from the EU are prohibited from providing services related to tourism activities in Russia. The European ski regions we continue to cover are listed above.

How you can help

We do not collect money and receive nothing from the links below. These are official websites of organizations working with the consequences of the war:

Sources

Link check date: 03.09.2026.

tourism.com.de Editorial Team
tourism.com.de Editorial TeamTravel editorial team: research, fact-checking, updates→ All publications

A small editorial team writing guides for independent travel. We travel ourselves, but we haven’t been everywhere, so we check prices, opening hours and how to get there against official sources.