I'll start from the end of your message:
Quote Originally Posted by edvalais View Post
What if handicapped Russian orphans have to stay in the orphanage? мне наплевать!
More or less that's true, I don't give a @#$! about starving children in Africa, dying wild nature and other terrible things. Well, when I hear somebody tells me about it I'll agree 'How awful! What a shame! Tsk, tsk, tsk..." but that's about all I would do. I found out that many people in the world try to look like they do care (you, for example - how exactly corrupted Putin poisons your existence?)


Quote Originally Posted by edvalais View Post
Yes, there is "something bad in it". If a parliament passes a law which affects orphans, I'd like to think that the primary motive is to improve their lives. The only motive here was symbolic - to attack a very small group of Americans. It is an indication of the type of people who sit in the Duma that they were quite prepared to use Russian orphans - some of them handicapped - as pawns in their silly game.
Well... First, the law about orphans should have been passed long ago (that's my opinion). Second, if the Duma found it convenient to pass this law AND to attack some group of Americans - I don't care either. Third, and the most important: there is a common misconception about Putin's being an absolute monarch here. That's not true. Despite his seemingly authoritarian style of government, quite often the domestic affairs are decided (much to my disappointment) not by him but by the government officials and the Duma. Generally, our Duma is not overly bright and sometimes passes laws that are either not going to work or simply self-contradictory. Russia is NOT Putin and Putin is NOT Russia. Relax.

Quote Originally Posted by edvalais View Post
Getting back to the Olympics, I wonder what the long-term impact will be? What perception will remain of your country?
Oh, they will soon forget about the Olympics. I'm sure Putin will do something more terrible to talk about.

Quote Originally Posted by edvalais View Post
Here in Switzerland it has very much focused people's minds on the central role played by Putin. The night before the opening ceremony there was a documentary on Swiss television which discussed his supposedly vast fortune. For many of the Swiss I speak to, Putin and Russia are synonymous.
What? The Swiss do care about Russia? They saw one 40 min. biased documentary and dare to judge? Come on! That reaction is the same as mine (tsk, tsk, tsk). People DO NOT care about anything outside their house/street/town/country.

Quote Originally Posted by edvalais View Post
What if billions of dollars have been wasted in bribes on the Olympics?
I watched a documentary stating that many of the IOC officials in the past were former Nazis. I read in a newspaper that the bribes at the Olympic bid of 1988 were as astronomical as they supposedly were in Sochi. Same with Nogano, Albertville, Salt Lake city, etc.

Besides, let's speak about facts. We don't know how big were the bribes, we don't even know if they were actually paid. We know that the Russian government has spent about 50 billion dollars during the last 7 years to prepare the site for the Olympics. They didn't include the bribes in the budget or did they? And what YOUR interest in those amounts? Envious that you're not the member of the IOC?