Sochi, the city that became famous for the 2014 Winter Olympics, is the general name for this whole region of Russia, a province located on the eastern side of the Black Sea and right next to the border with Georgia. The airport we landed in is named after Sochi but in fact it is near the town of Adler, from which it goes for 45 minutes to the ski town of Rosa Hutor near the Olympic Village built there for the competitions. The site has 102 miles of tracks that reach a maximum height of 2300 meters.
I arrived here in February 2019 as part of a three-day skiing vacation with my family, and booked it through Ski Deal. Shortened ski vacation is one of the most successful concepts in my opinion because a week requires a lot of expenses and days off, while a shortened weekend of skiing leaves you with a good taste of more and much less expense.
After skiing on such short vacations in Engelberg and Bansko, I was looking for a new destination and Sochi was the perfect choice.
The hotel we took was Golden Tulip, a comfortable and large hotel with equipment storage room.
Rosa Hutor's Psilitis
Rosa Hutor looks at first sight like a charming old town straight from classic Europe, but a brief stroll will make it clear that everything here feels a bit like the Truman show: buildings set up exclusively for tourists and no locals living here. The whole town is a total of two streets with modern and beautiful hotels on the banks of a river.
The center here is around the McDonald’s, where two of the main gondolas enter. All Rosa Hutor hotels are within a 5-minute walk of this cable car, with restaurants and shops scattered at the entrance to any small hotel or mall. In addition, there is a small complex of Georgian souvenir booths and sweets.
In order to start skiing, you must take at least one lift, and the equipment can be stored for an additional fee at the Olympia cable car (about 400 rubles per day) instead of taking it to the hotel’s ski room. By the way, if you do a week of skiing here you can extend the paid ski pass to another nearby site.
Rosa Houtur ski trails: long, wide and with a stunning view
Sochi is a great site for beginner and intermediate skiers because it has a lot of blue and green tracks and a lot of red tracks wide enough to give you a very comfortable and safe feeling. The black tracks there are not very numerous (they are tough, but not at the level of the Engelberg site for example) but there are a lot of “off piste” and unmarked areas with powder and adventure. The elevators are new and high quality and hardly any queues were felt in them, despite the weekend.
We started the day on the Olympia lift, right next to it is the Olympic Village, some hotels and the ski school trail. From there you need to take at least one other elevator called Zapovednit les to start skiing.
At the end of this elevator there is a wide variety of routes but don’t miss the Kavkazskiy express lift to Rosa Peak, the highest peak of the site (2330 m) from which you can take a panoramic panoramic route or descend back to the Olympia lift on a variety of routes.
I especially liked the red “Kashkad” track which was very long and challenging and the blue track called Triton. There are plenty of restaurants and cafes near cable cars and intersections at reasonable prices. Keep in mind that sellers hardly know English, but you will get along with them.
Apre Ski: visit the casino of Groki Gorod
Rosa Hautur’s vibrant nightlife will probably be over in one evening. The pubs here are pretty empty and restaurants close at ten-thirty, so it’s best to take a 500-ruble taxi for four people or a 25-ruble slow bus for Gorki Gorod, the local town where the locals live. The Groki Gorod has a five-story mall called star cinema with a crazy variety of ski equipment and affordable clothing stores, SIM card shops, souvenir stands and most importantly – the Marriott Hotel Casino, a particularly luxurious casino that is suitable for Russian oligarchs. His lighting is so prominent you can’t miss it
In order to enter the casino, you must bring a passport and the registration and entry process takes about 10 minutes. You will be asked to go around with the personal card that will be issued to you there all the time and use it to convert cash into chips. I do not promise, but it seems that Israelis are welcomed there beautifully and even receive a free first drink.
Rosa Hutor's restaurants
In general, the restaurants are relatively similar in terms of menus and prices, and all serve soups, meat dishes and dishes from Russian, Georgian and Italian cuisine: all of them will serve borscht soup, pizzas and pastas. Vegetarians will find it difficult to have meatless dishes here, aeven the vegetable soups include beef or pork.
Luciano: a cute Italian restaurant with excellent borscht soup, risotto and fast served pastas, in the clock tower structure
Modus: right next to the Golden Tulip is the Modus Restaurant, with varied meat dishes, of course borscht soup and chopped liver with orange jam.
Amsterdam Restaurant: a restaurant under the Tulip Inn, which offers a variety of Western dishes at fair prices
Rosa Houtur map
And what about the costs?
The deal we booked through Ski Deal included direct flights, 3 nights at the hotel with breakfast, stripe skiing, equipment, airport shuttle. The price for such a weekend starts from 800 euros per person.
Regarding the cost of living on site: Dishes at restaurants cost around $ 8.5, soups cost $ 4 and drinks are very cheap. The equipment stores are relatively expensive and the clothing stores are aimed at an oligarchic target audience and the prices in the sky. You can pay anywhere with a visa or spend money on a ruble because they do not receive another currency.
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