Word: sochi
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...satirical farce. Substitute some Russian names, and it becomes a straightforward recitation of facts. Vice President Alexander Rutskoi really did report to the Russian parliament early in October that he had tried a dozen times to reach the vacationing President Boris Yeltsin at the Black Sea resort of Sochi to ask what was to be done about a looming crisis, but failed. In reality as in fantasy, the script was singularly unfunny. As the first snows start to fall and a difficult winter looms, Russia is paralyzed by a web of incompetence. The wave of hope that swept the country...
Even so, the current paralysis constitutes melancholy proof that leaders who can arouse a populace against dictatorship are not necessarily -- or even usually -- equally proficient at forming a new government. Yeltsin's sojourn in Sochi continues a distressing pattern predating the revolution: Yeltsin tends to follow two or three months of intense activity with a few weeks of idleness during which he virtually drops out of sight. Whether the cause is simple exhaustion, a recurring physical disorder (there are rumors of heart trouble) or some psychological hang-up is unclear...
...exchange program of sorts: his former counterpart, Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, came to the U.S. last summer. Akhromeyev, now a close adviser to President Mikhail Gorbachev, accompanied Crowe on an eleven-day, nine-stop tour that stretched from Murmansk in the far north to Sochi on the Black Sea. Last week Crowe was summoned to the Kremlin for an audience with Gorbachev. The Soviet leader used the occasion to compliment the man who had appointed Crowe Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in 1985: "Former President Reagan saw the way things should go and turned the situation in the right direction...
...mellow summer evening last week, Captain Vadim Markov ordered his aged passenger liner unmoored in the Black Sea port of Novorossisk. The 17,053-ton Admiral Nakhimov steamed out of the harbor, bound for Sochi, 115 miles to the southeast, with 1,234 souls on board: a crew of 350 and 884 tourists, all Soviet citizens, enjoying a late-season coastal cruise. A band was playing on deck, and some of the passengers danced beneath brilliant lights that reflected off the dark waters...
Soviet doctors stress the restorative virtues of spa vacations. At many resorts, visitors can immerse themselves in bubbling sulfur baths or inhale herbal steam. At Sochi, where the beach is covered with black pebbles instead of sand, white-uniformed nurses patrol seaside stretches with names like Medical Beach and Health Beach, enforcing a 55-minute limit on exposure to the sun's rays, even for the swarthiest guest. The preferred way for getting a quick tan is to stand facing the sun with arms held aloft. Because of a shortage of swimsuits and suntan oil, beaches are crowded with thousands...