With the Russian resort city Sochi set to host the 2014 Winter Games, the election for mayor is heating up with likely contenders including an ex-KGB man wanted in Britain on suspicion of murder.


Who will be Russia's host to the Olympics: the KGB-officer-turned-oligarch, the outspoken liberal reformer or the international fugitive wanted on suspicion of murder?

As Russia basks in the hard-won prestige of hosting the 2014 Winter Games, a symbolic battle for the country's soul has erupted over an improbable prize: the office of mayor of Sochi, the Black Sea city where the Games will be held.
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The men vying to run the sleepy seaside resort include some of the biggest personalities to boom through Moscow's streets. At stake is a potentially lucrative position, as billions of dollars pour into Sochi to erect luxury hotels and sports arenas, and businesses scramble to curry favor with the local government.

More to the point, the mayor will open the Olympics as a symbolic ambassador of the Russia shaped by Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin.

Among the candidates' tortuous biographies, none is so noir as that of Andrei Lugovoy, who is wanted by Britain on suspicion of slipping radioactive poison into a dissident's tea. Lugovoy, who capitalized on the notoriety of the accusation to win a seat in parliament, enjoys a kind of hero status among many Russians -- precisely because they believe that he did poison a government critic.

In an interview at his parliamentary office Friday, the longtime KGB agent said he hoped and expected to run for mayor in April, though he stipulated that a final decision had yet to be made. He said market research was already underway and predicted that the race would go to a runoff, and that he would "definitely" be among the final two candidates.

"Sochi needs a fresh force that will come in . . . and put everything in its place," he said. "They say that Sochi shouldn't be run by outsiders, but that's a lie. It's time for radical action."

Looking natty and youthful in a neatly tailored suit and pink shirt, Lugovoy reclined in a deep leather chair. Behind him, a window framed the peaks of the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral. With an international warrant out for his arrest on suspicion of killing Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, the young nationalist lawmaker is unable to set foot outside Russia.

Lugovoy maintains that he was framed. And with a smirk, he said he should thank Britain for forcing him to travel in his own country. Protected by parliamentary immunity, he has roamed Russia, paying about 10 visits to Sochi in the last year alone, "mainly thanks to the filth in which the British prosecutor's office put me."

March 23, 2009 LA Times