The Olympic Village is a place specially designated for the accommodation of the participants in the Olympic Games, that is, athletes, coaches, medical personnel, technicians and other accompanying persons. In addition to living quarters in the Olympic Village, there are food points, sports and training complexes, shops, cultural and entertainment centers, Internet cafes, post offices - in a word, everything that is necessary for a modern comfortable life.
Depending on the specific conditions, the places of residence of the "Olympic villages" can be located either close to the main stadiums, where the games take place, or at a sufficient distance. In any case, the host country is obliged to provide the inhabitants of the "village" not only with comfort, but also with safety. For example, during the games, only a person with official accreditation can freely enter the territory of the “village”, and other people can visit it only after receiving a special pass.
The first games of our time, starting with the Athens Games in 1896, did not know such a concept - "Olympic Village". The sports delegation from each participating country independently decided the issue of accommodation, staying, as a rule, in hotels or in rented apartments. But as the list of Olympic sports expanded and delegations became more numerous, it became obvious that they needed to be located on a specific territory. At the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, competitors lived in specially built houses for the first time. From that moment on, the tradition arose to build "Olympic villages".
This tradition has not spared Moscow either. Before the 1980 Olympics, a large residential neighborhood was built in the south-west of the capital of the USSR, which was named the Olympic Village. However, since it was originally envisaged that Muscovites would live here after the departure of the competition participants, schools, clinics, and cultural centers were also included in the infrastructure of the microdistrict. For that time, 16- and 18-storey residential buildings with improved planning, of which the Olympic Village consisted, were considered almost an elite version of a typical development. In any case, the participants of the Olympics in Moscow were quite satisfied with the conditions of accommodation and recreation, no complaints were received from them.
