Bloomberg цитирует Говорит Донецк

But as the experience of Ukraine is demonstrating, political leaders' dreams of grandeur clash with a harsher reality: For local businesspeople, the sporting events represent a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rip off a bunch of foreigners.

On April 6, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich had to issue a special directive to ministers responsible for Euro 2012 preparations, telling them to drive down hotel rates in Ukraine “to economically justified levels." During the competition in June, a night at a Kyiv hotel will cost, on average, 247 euros, compared to 111 euros in Warsaw, Poland, [according to media reports].

Not surprisingly, 13 of the 16 national teams taking part in the Euro have chosen to stay in Poland, even though eight face first-round games in Ukraine. Of the remaining three teams, one is local and so does not need to stay in hotels. The other two are the Swedes and the French. The Danes tried to rent a hotel in the Ukrainian port town of Odessa, but opted for Poland after its owners drove up the price from 200 euros to 500 euros per night.

The naked greed far exceeds what fans have seen at recent events of this magnitude in other countries. The weekly magazine Focus wrote of a normally inexpensive Kharkiv hotel charging the price of a small car for its Euro package and of others driving up rates by a factor of ten and more. During Euro 2008, Vienna hotels merely doubled their rates.

Ukraine's Euro Cup Bodes Ill for Russia: Leonid Bershidsky