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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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The Winter Olympic Games of 2014 will take place in Sochi, Russia. For the first time this country will host winter Olympic games, and if the ex-Soviet Union is taken out of the calculation, this will be the first Olympic games ever in Russia. At least three big challenges face Moscow on the road toward this major international event. One of them is financial; the second has to do with the domestic politics; the last but not the least deals with regional political situation. If all these challenges are satisfied, Russia and the region won't be the same in short period of time.

The financial question seems enormous, but in fact, it's the easiest part of the preparations. The Russian government has promised the International Olympic Committee $12 billions of investments to the Black Sea town of Sochi, a popular summer time destination for middle class Russians. More than 60 percent of this money will come from the government; private companies will cover the remaining. To put this in comparative perspective, Russia would spend almost 4 times more for these Olympic games than Salt Lake City did for the Winter Olympics in 2002. This money will exceed all infrastructure investments planned for the eastern part of Siberia up to 2014. It will also exceed by far all governmental money spent on new technological development. But Russia right now swims in oil money, and these $12 billion, perhaps even more by the time of the Olympics, will be provided.

Second, Russia will come into the focus of the world attention, and the region surrounding the Olympic games, is now by far one of the hottest in terms of violence, political and common criminal activity. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, this is the most difficult region for the Russian government. Remember the two Chechen wars, thousands of killed and missing on both sides. On the other hand, given the benign climate, this region has attracted hundreds of thousands of new residents from all over Russia, and also from other ex-Soviet republics. So far Russia has proven unable to prevent ethnic and religious violence. By the 2014, however, Moscow must find working plan for ethnic and religious cohabitation. Nobody in the Kremlin would like to present the country as a power keg of violence of all sorts, right?

Third, Sochi is just a 'walking distance' from another hot spot, the Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia. This region is in fact fully independent from Tbilisi, or to put it differently, fully dependent upon Moscow. Olympic Games happening just miles from an occupied territory will certainly be an inconvenience for the Kremlin. Georgia, on the other hand, is looking for NATO membership as an insurance policy against Russia. A good compromise before the Olympic Games of 2014 will be to have an agreement on Abkhazia, most probably including its right to secede from Georgia, in exchange for the Georgian right to become a NATO member.

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