IF YOU build it, they will come.

In the case of Russia's new skifields, manufactured out of almost nothing to host the 2014 Winter Olympics, they'd better hope so.

Whether or not Sochi will be able to lay claim to the customary "best ever" tag so liberally applied to each and every edition of the Olympics remains to be seen, but when it comes to pre-Games cost blowouts, controversies and general concern, the Russians have already raised the bar.

Initially projected to cost between $10 billion and $15 billion, the Games budget has been nothing short of farcical and will now wind up well in excess of $50 billion as the Russian government attempts to conjure four world-class ski areas out of almost thin air.


Please, please,,stop throwing money at me..



KICK BACK AND RELAX

It's no surprise - nay, it's expected - that a few dollars were going to go missing throughout Sochi's snow-fuelled growth.

Russia is, after all, universally acknowledged as one of the most corrupt countries on the planet.

But the sheer magnitude of the rorting that has followed is almost unfathomable.

Russian government opposition estimates put the amount of money that has simply disappeared at up to $30 billion, with most of that allegedly going on "kickbacks and embezzlement" for Russian president Vladimir Putin's mates.

"An absence of fair competition, clan politics and the strictest censorship about anything related to the Olympic Games have led to a sharp increase in costs and a low quality of work," an opposition report said earlier this year.



A SLIPPERY SLOPE OF SPENDING

You might have noticed, but skiing is an offensively expensive pursuit.

And that's if you're just kitting the kids out and taking them up the mountain for a few days so they can show you up five minutes into their first lesson.

New mega-resorts are rarely being built these days, such is the setup cost and the bank-bustingly slow rate at which it'll be recouped, particularly early in the resort's life.

But someone forgot to tell Russia, which has built FOUR huge resorts virtually side by side in the Krasnaya Polyana region specifically for the Games, where before there were just three creaky old double chairlifts.



THE WORLD'S MOST EXPENSIVE ROAD

Take your state's most egregious budget-busting road upgrade, multiply it by whatever you like and you might have something approaching what the Russians have done in building a road link between the city of Sochi and the snowsports precinct in Krasnaya Polyana.

The 29km stretch of road, initially expected to cost an already mind-melting $4.9 billion, will now come in around the $9 billion mark.

A Russian magazine with too much time on its hands calculated that for the same cash, the entire road could be coated with a four-inch layer of truffles.

SNOW OR SEA?

Palm trees, summer temperatures averaging in the mid to high 20s and winter averages around 11C.

It sounds like Melbourne, but we're talking Sochi, which is officially considered a humid subtropical climate.

It's also only an hour or so by road to the skifields at which the world's winter sports elite will strut their stuff, which makes the Russian city an all the more bizarre choice to host a Winter Olympic Games.

The potential for sunbaking weather has seen organisers stockpiling snow since February this year and they'll use 400 snow machines to make sure there's enough white stuff when the cameras start rolling.


How the Russian government overspent on the Winter Olympics by $40 billion | News.com.au