"Sochi Problems" Is The Hot New Social Media Destination

Nowadays, when a problem people want to kvetch about pops up, it's all over social media.

And when the topic really takes off in a super viral fashion on Twitter and Tumblr and all those places, you know you have problems.

Some yummy looking tap water at
A Sochi Olympics hotel.  

Which brings us to the Sochi Olympics,  don't seem to be getting off to a great start. Mostly because construction on the venue isn't finished yet, and the work that has been done is, shall we say, shoddy?

If an American contractor worked like this, their reviews on Angie's List and Yelp wouldn't be very good, let me tell ya.

The Twitter account @SochiProblems had more than 58,000 followers as of early Thursday morning. That number was rising fast.

These urinals don't appear to be connected
to any plumbing.  

If you haven't seen some of the issues with the hotels, particularly, and other aspects of the accommodations they're simultaneously sad and hilarious.

Here's a sample:

• Canadian radio host Jian Ghomeshi reports, via Twitter: "My hotel room has no Internet, no hot water, no curtains and no furniture. On the plus side, three of the four lights work.

• Here's an alarming Tweet send by a Stacy St. Clair, who is in Sochi: "My hotel has no water. If restored, the front desk says, 'Do not use it on your face because it contains something very dangerous.' 

• A sign in one bathroom read: "Please do not flush toilet paper down the toilet. Put in in the bin provided." At least the photo showing this sign indeed shows that the bin has been provided.

• Among the rules of toilet use in the hotel bathrooms is you can't take your rod and reel and go fishing out of the toilets. (?!?!?!?)

• Another sign demands that nobody go tobogganing in a restaurant.

• Some urinals are not connected to plumbing. Some toilets can't be flushed. 

• One hotel had no floor installed yet, but the hotel room did have a welcoming picture of Vladimir Putin in a stern pose.

• NBC reporter Richard Engels demonstrated how his computers were almost immediately hacked as soon as he turned them on upon arriving in Sochi.

So, there are some definite glitches there, on top of the security worries and the Russian government's horrible human rights abuses against gay people.  

I have to wonder if this will ever work. Let's hope so.