Plot twist: The Sochi Olympics aren’t in Sochi.  Instead, games are being held in the city of Alder, which is a larger city along the coast.

According to Dan Wetzel, Alder is full of sporting venues, box hotels, a brand new amusement park, new roads and train lines, a brick board walk along the Black Sea and lots of fences.  They are everywhere you look, reaching heights of eight feet, and line roads, alleys and sometimes other fences.

These fences were thrown up by the government to keep tourists from seeing the swampy environment and poverty-stricken area.  However, many people here still can’t even afford to take the train and must ride the bus for two hours to reach the city’s center.

The city is undergoing construction that will attempt to turn the swampland into an international vacation destination.

President Vladimir Putin told the International Olympic committee that he would practically build a new city if he was able to host the 2014 Winter Games in Russia.  He spent $51 billion and seven years on the reconstruction and rebuilding of the city.

Locals are appreciative towards Putin’s efforts, yet it was not done in time for the Olympics.  Poor construction is the cause for most of this.  The new brick path that stretches along the Black Sea has already begun to crack and crumble from the ground shifting, ruining the entire thing that was placed brick-by-brick.

Hotels that line the waterfront were built with swimming pools, concrete patios and floor-to-ceiling windows, but were not ready for guests.

Putin keeps pushing for improvement, hoping that the new attractions will begin to draw more people to Russia and help the country as a whole.