Veliky Ustyug/Agency Caucasus – Sochi, a port and resort in southwestern Russia, located in the western foothills of the Caucasus, created a recent storm of debate among a group of Russians over how to symbolize it.
Amid already ongoing talks of proposals to use a figure of either dolphin or elephant as a symbol for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics are there now efforts by a group of Russians to use the figure of Santa Claus as the symbol. There has been a public campaign in the Veliky Ustyug town of Vologda since October for using Father Christmas as the figure to symbolize Sochi.
Vyacheslav Pozgalev, Vologda Governor, joined the campaign in Moscow on Tuesday when he said at a press conference that Santa Claus should definitely be the symbol for Sochi Olympics: "Tens of thousands of Olympians supported the months-old campaign for selection of the figure of Father Christmas as the symbol."
A Russia-wide contest will have the final say in what to use as the symbol for the Olympics in Sochi in 2004.
Selection of Sochi as the place for Olympic games drew criticism from Circassians because their ancestors had been slaughtered in large numbers in Sochi. KU/ÖZ/FT
