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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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The National Aquatics Center, with the Beijing National Stadium in the background (Source: Wikipedia)

The Olympic games of Beijing are over. The Paralympic games will be held in the first half of September 2008, also mainly in Beijing. When these games are over too, the question will be what to do with numerous and diverse buildings and infrastructures built for the purpose. According to the Beijing mayor, all infrastructures, including all newly built residences, will be recycled and used following closely their original purposes. No building or sport facility will be permanently closed; some, however, may slightly change their initial vocation. The national aquatics center, also known as the "Water Cube", will host an aqua park by the end of 2008. Other 46 Olympic sport facilities will host different sport and cultural events. More than 70 percent of all residences in the Olympic village have already been sold to private owners; they could enter their new homes also by the end of this year.

The Summer Olympics of 2008 were only a pretext to change the city face, as we already mentioned almost 2 years ago. Thousands have been moved out of their homes. An area, the size of a big city itself, tens of square kilometers, mostly in the northern areas, was under development for many years. For their centuries-old houses, people were given up to $800 per sq.m compensation. Given the residential prices in the downtown, they were in fact given a one-way ticket to go to remote and much cheaper outskirts. For a country that still officially profess communist ideology, these Olympics games were remarkably business friendly. Up to $40 billion were spend, a record that would hardly be broken during another Olympics.

The issue of the costs associated with the Olympic games often plagues the public authorities many years after the end of the games. Cities from around the world have struggled for years, sometimes for decades, to repay for the weeks and months of spending extravaganza that usually goes hand-in-hand with any event of such magnitude. In the case of Beijing, it seems that there will be no such troubles, at least not for the capital city authorities. The money came from all parts of the country; and the spending was primarily aiming to boost the prestige of the central power. Beijing will have no other event of such international magnitude in the foreseeable future; therefore all means were appropriate to make urban changes as deep as possible in the face of the city.

No such need will accompany the next Olympic cities, Vancouver (Canada), London (England), and Sochi (Russia). With the possible exception of the latter, the other two cities won't try to make political gains out of the sport event. Even Russia, however, won't invest so heavily in a small southern town that will ultimately serve only a tiny fraction of newly rich Russians.

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