Through fog of complaints, Sochi's light shines

SOCHI, Russia (AP) — Unfinished hotels, packs of stray dogs with a price on their heads, warnings not to drink the strange-colored water. Westerners coming to Sochi for the Winter Olympics seemed surprised by all this. Their widely reported comments have been somewhere between sardonic and suffering, as if they’d ended up in a real-life Fawlty Towers.

But for a Westerner who’s lived in Russia for 15 years, there’s a flip-side surprise: Vivid problems aside, the Olympics and ancillary development show some promising signs for the country.