See Sochi at Three O-Clock!!  It is right on the Black Sea, not far from Georgia.  As a part of our Touring, we took a short boat cruise into the Black Sea and caution was observed as not long before, pirates/other, had taken people prisoner while cruising as we were.   You might take note of the number of countries that surround the Black Sea.   Stan writing in 2014.

Following the Russian Revolution, Russia became the largest and leading constituent of the Soviet Union, the world’s first constitutionally socialist state and a recognized superpower, that played a decisive role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the greatest technology achievements of the 20th century, such as the world’s first human spaceflight. The Russian Federation was founded following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, but is recognized as the continuing legal personality of the Soviet state. Russia has the world’s 10th largest economy by nominal GDP or the 6th largest by purchasing power parity, with the 5th largest nominal military budget. It is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.^[20] Russia is a great power and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, a member of the G8, G20, the Council of Europe, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Eurasian Economic Community, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and is the leading member of the Commonwealth of Independent S

I have included a map of the Black Sea to give us an appreciation of the proximity of so many other European Nations.  (See Sochi > right side, lower quadrant. Also see the white section below UKRAINE: That is CRIMEA > see Yalta; & then see the article below, The Yalta Conference. If you have a desire to learn just a little about some of these places, go to Wikipedia and search; That is what Stan Did!!  Click: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and code named the Argonaut Conference, was the wartime meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and General Secretary Joseph Stalin, respectively, for the purpose of discussing Europe’s post-war reorganization. Mainly, it was intended to discuss the re-establishment of the nations of war-torn Europe. The conference convened in the Livadia Palace near Yalta, the Crimea. It was the second of three wartime conferences among the Big Three (Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin). It had been preceded by the Tehran Conference in 1943, and it was followed by the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, which was attended by Harry S. Truman in place of the late Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill, with Churchill replaced mid-point by the newly elected Prime Minister Clement Attlee .

We, the Shufflers  visited the summer home of Stalin.   To read a short story and see a couple of pix, click:  P2 Our Guide Alina ON STALIN

Stan McCormack >> Getting Prepared For the 2014 Olympics!!  2014 01 25.