The Olympic Village is a complex of buildings in which the participants of the games and the persons accompanying them are located. In addition, they also usually have a number of additional premises, including canteens, shops, a cultural center, hairdressers, post offices, and so on. In other words, it is a whole town or village in which everyone who is involved in the Olympic Games in any way lives. Usually they are located close to the Olympic stadiums in a particular city. The sports complex of the village should provide all conditions for training athletes and their comfortable living.
The history of this type of village is quite interesting. At the first Olympic Games, representatives of each country independently decided on the accommodation of their delegations during the competition. In 1924, during the Paris Olympics, athletes had to live in wooden buildings, after which they received the well-established name "Olympic village".
At the games in Los Angeles in 1932, houses for the participants were specially built near the stadium. Then the tradition of creating Olympic villages appeared. In accordance with the Olympic Charter, the construction of such villages and their maintenance falls on the shoulders of the host city of the Games. Only residents can visit the Olympic Villages, and outsiders are allowed there only with a special pass.
For the 1980 Olympics, an Olympic Village was also built in the USSR. Moscow, which hosted the competition, created a whole residential neighborhood in preparation for the Olympics. However, this village, unlike previous cities, was originally conceived as a residential neighborhood, therefore, in addition to the houses themselves, schools, a hospital, cultural and entertainment facilities were built.
The village was built back in 1979, but even then the architects were based on the construction of buildings in the image of houses of mass construction. Their goal was to create a village that would be radically different from all the previous ones. Now it is a Moscow residential area, consisting of 16-storey buildings of the standard series, which at one time were already very popular. The Olympic Village in Moscow is an exemplary example of complex development: there is a sports complex, a shopping center, a polyclinic, as well as many buildings for cultural and domestic purposes.
