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Don't flush the toilet, don’t drink the water and don’t expect a good night’s sleep.
These are just some of the bizarre problems guests and athletes can expect at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Winter Olympics in Sochi.
With just days to go before the opening ceremony, the seaside city is a bit of a five-ring circus.
For example, some journalists found this advice in their bathrooms: “Please do not flush toilet paper down the toilet! Put it in the bin provided.”
Others were greeted with a diagram offering the proper use of the bathroom facilities.
No fishing was among the “don’ts.”
No toilet fishing at these Olympic Games.
Stacy St. Clair of the Chicago Tribune was ready to take the Olympic torch to her place.
“My hotel has no water,” she tweeted. “If restored, the front desk says, ‘do not use on your face because it contains something very dangerous.’ ”
She later tweeted a somewhat terrifying picture of two glasses filled with a urine-colored liquid.
“Water restored, sorta,” she tweeted.
The upside, she noted: “I just washed my face with Evian, like I’m a Kardashian or something.”
The reporter wasn’t alone in finding an international crisis upon arrival at the Black Sea resort.
Though the Russians poured $51 billion into the Olympics, arriving journalists found only six of their nine hotels fully operational.
Constructions crews remained hard at work two days before the opening ceremonies, despite the claims of organizers that 97% of the hotel rooms were ready.
In a column posted on Canada.com, National Post sportswriter Bruce Arthur provided a quick rundown of what’s going wrong:
Stacy St. Clair tweeted about the potability of the water at her Sochi hotel.
“Almost every room is missing something: lightbulbs, TVs, lamps, chairs, curtains, Wi-Fi, heat, hot water. Shower curtains are a valuable piece of the future black market here.”
There was also much tweeting and tweaking of the hosts over their double-toilet bathrooms, which are apparently no urban legend.
A pair of biathletes posed on two adjoining commodes in a widely circulated shot.
Another newcomer, a German photographer arrived to find his media hotel room unfinished. He was moved to a second room — where still-busy construction workers had taken up residence.
His third room was occupied — by a stray dog.
BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES
A construction worker lays paving bricks Tuesday ahead of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, which hold opening ceremonies on Friday.
“When I came out of the elevator, there was the dog,” recalled Joerg Reuter of the European Pressphoto Agency. “I said, ‘Right, that’s it.’ ”
CNN sports producer Harry Reekie weighed in with a picture of his sad-looking accommodation: A broken curtain rod and dangling curtains.
“Shambles,” he wrote.
CNN booked 11 rooms in the media hotels five months ago — but arrived to find only one available.
The Canadian hockey team’s accommodations are ready, but incredibly cramped.
This Sochi bathroom has an unusual policy on toilet paper.
The typically pampered NHL stars are expected to sleep three to a room in beds better suited for college freshmen than pro athletes.
Each bed comes with a Lilliputian-sized nightstand and matching lamp. Rick Nash, 6-foot-4 and 213 pounds, beware!
Still, they will most likely enjoy a better experience than the first members of the media on the scene.
Lightbulbs were at such a premium that Yahoo! Sports columnist Dan Wetzel was offering three of them for a single working door handle.
“This offer is real,” he tweeted.
In his dispatch, Wetzel detailed living in a room with two beds, one pillow, no shower curtain. Outside his room, workers were still laying bricks on the local streets.
Shaun Walker, Moscow correspondent for Britain’s Guardian newspaper, recounted “techno music played at an ear-splitting volume” as jet-lagged journalists tried in vain to sleep.
His tweet to three incoming journalists: “If you bring 4.9 stars we can add it to what we have already and it’ll be a five star hotel!”
Detroit Free Press sportswriter Jo-Ann Barnas, at her eighth Olympics, tweeted a picture of a manhole dangerously missing its cover.
DAVID GOLDMAN/AFP/GETTY
If the goal was to make it an Olympic Games to remember, Russian President Vladimir Putin has already won over some veteran journalists and athletes.
There’s more where that came from, she warned.
“Watch your step @Sochi2014 I’ve noticed on walkway and on sidewalks that not all manholes are covered,” Barnas tweeted.
The hashtag #SochiProblems was picking up steam two days before the opening ceremonies, and a satiric @sochiproblems account was already operating.
Dave Schwartz, a weekend sports anchor at KARE-TV in Minnesota, tweeted pictures of random cats wandering through the main media center.
They’re likely faring better than the stray dogs set for capture and death in the days before the Games start.
BBC Moscow acting bureau chief Kevin Bishop reported that the floor — yes, the floor — was missing from behind the counter at their hotel reception desk.
His room came complete with a 5-foot-long bed and a framed picture of Putin. Neither was suitable for sleeping.