The mascots of the Winter Olympic Games, which will take place in the city of Sochi, were chosen on February 26, 2011 during the final voting on the First TV Channel. It was the viewers who decided the fate of the first three places. And before that, an intermediate stage of selection took place. Millions of Russian citizens took part in a lively discussion on which mascot would be most suitable for the Sochi Olympics.
The hard road to triumph
Residents of Sochi in 2008, long before the announcement of the All-Russian competition, had already made their choice. They really liked the work of the Yaroslavl artist Olga Belyaeva, depicting a Black Sea bottlenose dolphin on skis. However, many Russians did not share their opinion, reasonably believing that the dolphin cannot be a symbol of winter or winter sports.
On September 1, 2010, the All-Russian Olympiad mascot competition was officially announced. In a few months, his organizing committee received over 24 thousand works sent from literally all over Russia. The talent of our people has fully manifested itself. A wide variety of mascots have been created, including fantastic living creatures and abstract compositions. The expert jury had a hard time. Moreover, the opinion of its members at times differed from the opinion of the visitors of the Talisman Sochi-2014 website. So, for example, the undisputed leader of the audience's sympathy was the work of the Muscovite E. Zhgun - the mascot "Zoich", depicting a tailless amphibian.
However, the expert jury headed by Konstantin Ernst did not include Zoich in the list of finalists announced on December 21, 2010. The same fate befell the second most popular version of the mascot - "Mittens".
"Self-rejection" of Santa Claus
11 variants of mascots for the Olympic Games and 3 variants for the Paralympic Games were allowed to the final vote. However, soon the mascot Santa Claus, created by representatives of the tourism business with the support of the Vologda Oblast administration, was excluded from the list of finalists. The fact is that the mascot of the Olympics becomes the property of the International Olympic Committee. But Santa Claus is one of the symbols of Russia (albeit unofficial). For some reason this circumstance was not taken into account earlier.
Almost one and a half million viewers took part in the voting. 28, 2% of the votes were received by the Leopard, created by Vadim Pak from Nakhodka, 18, 3% - by the White Bear, by Oleg Serdechny from Sochi, and 16, 4% - by the Bunny, the creation of Sylvia Petrova from the Chuvash village of Novoye Buyanovo.
Ray and Snowflake became the mascots of the Paralympic Games.
