ON A tropical mountain near the Black Sea, a newly built ski lift stretches up into the clouds, while a lone worker blinks sleepily in the heat. “That’s where they’re going to build the winter Olympics village,” says my guide.

This is Sochi, Russia’s biggest resort on the Black Sea coast. Every year, three million Russians descend on the town for summer, drawn by its beaches, casinos and brash discos. It is not a place one immediately associates with alpine sports.

However, Russia’s Government has decreed a $12 billion (£6.3 billion) “Federal Programme for Alpine Resorts”, which aims to turn Sochi into a major winter resort to try to win the 2014 winter Olympics. It is a hugely ambitious construction programme.

The Government aims to build five stadiums, 23,000 new hotel rooms, and two new ski resorts. It is also building motorways, mountain tunnels, ski-lifts, airport terminals and a power plant. So much construction is under way that the local authorities are building a cement factory in the nearby port of Novorossiysk.

About $7 billion is coming from the state budget, which is increasingly liquid because of the influx of billions of petro-dollars. President Putin has given the project his personal backing. “Sochi is the ideal place (for the Winter Games),” he said. “It has a mild climate, it’s by the sea, and has snow all year round on the mountains.”

Mr Putin has a particular fondness for large, high-profile projects that demonstrate Russia’s economic clout to the world. The recent G8 summit in St Petersburg, for example, was ten times costlier than the previous summit at Gleneagles.

His personal support for the Sochi project means that the construction targets, though formidable, are likely to be met. “When the President supports something, it gets done,” Sergei Sukhanov, the deputy mayor of Sochi, said.

Russia’s biggest companies are rallying round to show patriotic support for the project. Gazprom has almost finished constructing an hotel-village at the foot of a mountain. The metals tycoon Oleg Deripaska is pumping money into Sochi, and is reportedly looking to buy its new airport terminal for $100 million.

Interros, holding company of the oligarch Vladimir Potanin, has pledged to build a $300 million resort, called Roza Khutor. Work began this summer.

Sochi faces stiff competition, from Salzburg and from Pyeongchang in South Korea. However, Mr Sukhanov believes that his city’s rare mix of mountains and beaches will give it an advantage. Indeed, the ice- hockey and speed skating rinks will be built right by the coast, among tropical palm trees.

Yefim Bitenyov, manager of the bid, believes that Russia’s offering could surpass that of Turin this year. “I wasn’t that impressed with the presentation in Turin,” he says. “They looked like they just kept up the Christmas decorations.”

Even in Turin, the Kremlin spared no expense to show off Russia’s new wealth. It paid for a hot-air balloon emblazoned “Russia!” to fly over the event, and set up a hospitality area, called Russia House, where dignitaries were spoon-fed caviar.