Putin: It's time for Altai

President Vladimir Putin suggested Sochi must now stand on its own feet rather than expect more subsidies in the wake of the Games. Tourist development of the pristine Altai Mountains lags far behind the ski-ing infrastructure built at Rosa Khutor, above Sochi. 

'Just imagine that we now withdraw funds from the Altai territory to make additional investments in Sochi where tens of billions of roubles were invested as it is,' said the country's leader. 'With all my love for Sochi, it should now be developed by other means, and there can hardly be additional investments now that the city has received huge resources.'

He added: 'This would be poor statesmanship and unfair to people living in other territories.'

Stressing a theme he has championed lately, Putin made clear he wants to see Russia tap its tourist potential to a far greater extent. 

'We cannot take money away from some regions and move it to Sochi. This would not be a statesman's approach to the problem and would be dishonest towards people in other regions. Most importantly, this would not be a reasonable decision on our part. We have a colossal potential for promoting tourism. Domestic tourism is poorly developed in this country'.