Gays and Terrorists: How the Sochi Olympics Earned its Themes

For lovers of the Winter Olympics, it doesn't matter if you're gay or straight. Once you get to Russia, you will be a stranger in a strange land, and, according to the US State Department, facing some serious threats. It's been a banner year for the global LGBT community, who joined their hetero pals in a good belly-laugh when Sochi mayor Anatoly Pakhomov recently told the BBC that "There are no gays in Sochi," just hours after the reporter visited a gay bar in the city for interviews. While Russian opposition voices have said gays from around the globe will be welcome at the Olympics (including Vladimir Putin, who gave a grandfatherly I-don't-want to-know-your-sexuality and keep-it-away-from-the-kids answer), the US State Department recently gave a more sobering warning to gays traveling there. A recent law in Russia makes it "a crime to promote LGBT equality in public, but lacks concrete legal definitions for key terms. Russian authorities have indicated a broad interpretation of what constitutes 'LGBT propaganda,'” according to the State Department. But being gay in Sochi may prove to be the least of any foreigner's worries, say US officials. Although many a seasoned traveler may slough off government advisories as a bit of Big Brother manipulation and paranoia, there's the matter of terrorist bombings in the region that no traveler should ignore. Russian authorities still search for a 22-year-old "Black Widow" suicide bomber they believe may already be in Sochi, according to ABC News. Russia has ben plagued by terrorists attacks, including three bombings since October that killed more than 30 people in Volgograd, a city about 400 miles from Sochi, according to the Washington Post. In December, three people were killed by a car bomb in Pyati­gorsk, east of Sochi near the Caucasus mountains. Sochi is within 300 miles of the North Caucasus region, a well-known hub of Islamist extremism and the source of various threats against the Olympics. Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/2008-07-03_%D0%92%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B8%D1%80_%D0%9F%D1%83%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%BD_%284%29.jpeg