MOSCOW, January 28 (R-Sport) - Russia's Olympic chief Alexander Zhukov said Monday that the organizers of the Sochi 2014 Winter Games are yet to tap state coffers, working exclusively off the $1.2 billion they have raised in sponsorship.
The organizing committee run by Dmitry Chernyshenko is responsible for arranging the technical aspects of the Olympic preparations, and does not answer for any of the building work in the Black Sea resort.
"At this moment in time the organizing committee hasn't spent a single kopeck from the budget," said Zhukov, also a deputy prime minister.
"This has occurred by attracting record sponsorship money - more than $1.2 billion," he added.
That total does indeed exceed the reported amounts raised by London 2012 and Beijing 2008, however a large tranche comes from state-run or state-controlled companies such as communications giant Rostelecom and oil behemoth Rosneft.
That has attracted criticism in some quarters of back-door government financing, though organizers have rejected those claims.
The Games open February 7, 2014.
All the facilities are being built from scratch in a project estimated to cost in excess of $30 billion. The last evaluation by Chernyshenko put the construction work at 70 percent complete.
