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Sochi and Adler attractions: why we removed these travel guides
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Updated:8 min1,671 words

Sochi and Adler attractions: why we removed these travel guides

The six guides that used to live at this address are gone. They covered the sights of Sochi and Adler, a three-day itinerary, road trips around the surrounding area, a route to the waterfalls, and a piece on the region's thermal springs.

All of them described the city as a resort with an Olympic past and beautiful surroundings. We believe you cannot write about this city without naming the dates that usually never make it into such texts, and without mentioning that it is also home to an active state residence where meetings with the military leadership take place.

💡 At a glance:

  • which six guides were deleted and what they left out
  • the timeline connecting the 2014 Games and the events of the following month
  • what a 2013 report says about the cost of preparing for the Games
  • which sea and mountain destinations remain in our live sections
  • Last updated: 09/2026

Why we deleted these guides

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, and after that date the sightseeing guides kept working as an invitation to come. A separate problem with these texts is that three of the six were route-based: they explained how to reach the waterfalls and where to go by car. We do not reproduce or retell such material in any form.

All old addresses in all language versions redirect here. The deleted city category also points here: this is the only page that explains the decision in full.

A sightseeing guide seems like the most harmless genre in the section: it sells neither rooms nor tickets. In reality, it does more important work than a hotel roundup, because it creates the very desire to travel, while the other texts merely service a decision that has already been made. That is why we deleted the overview pieces on the same footing as the hotel lists, not as an afterthought.

The legal framework is the same for the whole category: from January 1, 2026, a person from the European Union may not provide or advertise services directly related to tourism activities in Russia (EUR-Lex, Regulation 2025/2033 of 23.10.2025). The financial framework is also the same: the share of non-oil-and-gas revenues in Russia's budget has grown to roughly 78 percent, while oil and gas revenues have fallen to roughly 22 percent. Tourist spending goes precisely into the budget's non-oil-and-gas revenues (OSW Centre for Eastern Studies, 09.12.2025).

The timeline our texts never included

The Winter Olympic Games in Sochi ended on February 23, 2014. Three weeks later, on March 16, 2014, a so-called referendum was held in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol. On March 27, 2014, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 68/262 "Territorial integrity of Ukraine" by 100 votes to 11, with 58 abstentions: the resolution affirms Ukraine's territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders and declares the referendum invalid (text of resolution A/RES/68/262, UN).

We present this as a timeline with dates, not as a claim of a causal link between the Games and the events that followed. We make no such claim and do not consider ourselves entitled to make one. But the sequence of dates itself never appeared in a guide that called the Olympic legacy the city's main asset, and we will no longer reproduce that omission.

Today, Russian-occupied Crimea (Ukraine) remains a territory we write about only in a legal context, and there is no separate travel material about it on the site.

What preparing for the Games cost

There is a second part to the story, also documented. Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister of Russia, published a report in 2013 stating that up to 30 billion dollars was siphoned off from preparations for the Sochi Olympics; the estimated cost of the Games was around 51 billion dollars, making them the most expensive in history (Al Jazeera, 30.05.2013).

This is the only section we devote to the economics of the Games: we have no intention of turning the text into an investigation. But the Olympic infrastructure was the main argument of our previous guides, and knowing what it cost and what estimates existed before it was even built is more useful to the reader than a list of viewpoints.

A state residence in the same city

Sochi is home to the Bocharov Ruchey state residence, the summer residence of the Russian president and a venue for talks with heads of other states; such visits have been reported by official state portals of the host countries, among others (United24 Media). The new residence building was constructed before the 2014 Games, and since 2014 it has regularly hosted meetings with the Ministry of Defense and representatives of the military-industrial complex (United24 Media).

In other words, the city that our texts described exclusively as a resort is also a permanent political address. We draw no accusations against the city's residents from this and claim nothing beyond what is stated above. We merely note that the resort framing described this place incompletely.

Let us add the transport context, without which any discussion of traveling to the sights is moot. Since February 2022, 11 airports in southern and central Russia have been closed, partial reopenings began only in 2024 and 2025, and in May 2026 there were reports of a possible closure of more than 13 airports in the south of the country (The Moscow Times, 26.04.2024; NV, 05.2026).

What this means for you as an EU reader

Item

Status 09/2026

Source

Services related to tourism in Russia

Prohibited by Article 5n(2) of Regulation 833/2014 as amended by Regulation 2025/2033

EUR-Lex

Tour guide services

Explicitly named among the services covered by the ban

Skadden, 11.2025

Status of Crimea

The referendum of 16.03.2014 was declared invalid by UN General Assembly Resolution 68/262 of 27.03.2014

UN, A/RES/68/262

Airports in southern Russia

11 closed since 2022, partial reopenings since 2024; in May 2026, reports suggested more than 13 could be closed

The Moscow Times, NV

German Foreign Office advisory

"Vor Reisen in die Russische Föderation wird gewarnt"

Auswärtiges Amt

Where to go instead

The query was about the sea, mountains, and nature close together, as well as road trips around the surrounding area. The live sections of the site answer that: Montenegro, Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, and for mountain routes, Austria, Italy, and Slovenia. The thermal springs that led readers to open one of the deleted texts can be found in Hungary, Slovenia, and Italy.

The editorial team's overall explanation for the entire section is collected in the section hub. Related topics: our position on summer vacations in Sochi and our position on the ski cluster.

Where we stand

We believe that a city guide should either name the city in full or not exist at all. In our assessment, our previous reviews showed only the resort side of the city and stayed silent about the political side. This was not carelessness but a property of the genre: a resort text cannot accommodate dates, residences, or reports on construction costs. That is why we decided to remove these materials rather than tack on an extra paragraph.

We write about the state and its politics, 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 is about money, sanctions, and reader safety, not nationality.

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

⁉️🤔 Frequently asked questions

You claim the Olympics were preparation for the annexation?

No, and we specifically state that. We only present the sequence of dates from the chronology section. We do not draw any conclusions about cause and effect.

Nature is not to blame for politics. Why delete the text about waterfalls?

The text about waterfalls was route-based: it explained how to get there. We do not publish practical travel information for any site in the country, and natural sites are no exception here.

Where does the information about the state residence come from?

From a United24 Media publication, which in turn relies in part on official government statements about visits. We only state the fact that the residence exists and the nature of the meetings held there, without any additional claims.

What happened to the city section on the site?

It has been removed, and all of its addresses across all language versions now redirect to this page as a thematic hub for the city.

In short

Six guides to Sochi and Adler attractions have been removed, including three route-based ones. Three weeks after the Games, a referendum was held in Crimea, which the UN declared invalid. According to a 2013 report, up to 30 billion dollars were diverted from the Games' preparation, out of an estimated cost of about 51 billion. The city is home to a state residence where meetings with the military department have been held since 2014. Destinations with sea and mountains 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.