Or assassinating opponents, locking up dissenters, bashing (figuratively and literally) gays and generally using state force to break human rights.

"Is that how you justify pumping 50 billion in olympics that they shouldn't have in the first place?"

Well, it's not that it didn't happened before. Greece was the olympics host a few years ago, and spent for that billions of euros. Greece!

In some ways the Greece culture and politics can be compared to Russia's. In most cases they cannot however.

What's interesting about the Olympics example is that the amount is 3 times more than the previous Olympics. And I can assure you that that is not because everything is 3 times more expensive. The majority of this funding ended up in the pockets of corrupt politicians and their business friends, not reinvested in things like infrastructure, providing jobs and uplifting the economy as a whole. This is exactly where the article is spot on and why one of the most important roads in Russia is still an embarrassment of civil engineering.

I don't know about the costs involved and if three times the previous costs is justified, but that the corrupt politicians and their business friends are feasting on government projects is not a rarity either. Just to leave you an example:

http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2012/11/dod-contractors-cos...