Sochi and Krasnaya Polyana, however, have a bigger mountain to climb. At the moment the infrastructure is extremely basic. The main ski area is serviced by a succession of four agonisingly slow two-man chairs, but the potential of the surrounding Caucasus mountains is undoubtedly enormous.
The plan is to create something similar to Chamonix, with four unlinked ski areas in the valley, comprising 27 lifts and an impressive 280km of pistes.
Each of the areas is being developed by different organisations, so whether they can eventually agree on a shared lift pass is another question.
At the moment the state-of-the-art lift system is no more than a concept, so the Gucci-wearing clientele have come up with a unique method of dealing with the uncomfortable chairlifts: they wear a cheap padded J-cloth around their expensive waists and sit on it when riding the chair. It is a very stylish look.
On my visit I found a place at a crossroads between old and new Russia. There is still a deeply ingrained "Nyet" culture, where the suspicious and instinctive answer to any request is more often than not "no".
Jaded prostitutes work the hotel lounges and the hotel buffet made Bulgarian buffets seem palatable.
A major part of the brief was to heliski the new terrain, but despite three days of perfect weather, incomprehensible local politics kept the helicopters grounded.
In this respect, the presidential connection is more a curse than a blessing. On our final day Putin flew in for a week — while he is in town all helicopter flights are cancelled.
However, what waited for us in Perestroika Bowl was sensational. As we finally got to the top of the four chairlifts, the misty hangover of the two-day snowstorm lifted and revealed the spine-tingling terrain.
Petrov, our guide, explained: "There is much variety, you can go this way, and you can go that way." In fact, you could do a lot more than that, there were hundreds of different lines.
A huge bowl accessed by the top chair, you can track along the central spine and drop down either side, sweep out and come down the steep flanks or curl round to a series of interlinking bowls and drop down through well-spaced trees. Both in terms of scale and terrain it is reminiscent of Jupiter Bowl in Utah's Park City.
As we stood at the summit of what is a giant natural terrain park we had two feet of fresh snow to share with only a handful of surprisingly good skiers, and we were soon cutting tight lines through the trees and leaping off fabulous natural jumps and drop-offs. Welcome to Russia, land of the freeriding.
However, a major stumbling block for foreign skiers is modern Russia's spiralling prices. The daily lift pass costs £20, fine for the terrain but not the lifts.
The French chef of Atmosphere, one of the better restaurants, explained that many of his customers had actually complained his prices were not high enough, saying "we want to pay more".
It is this ostentatious desire for showy wealth which has driven Moscow to become one of the world's most expensive cities, and the same is in danger of happening to Russia's ski resorts.
As long as they can deliver the Olympic investment, Krasnaya Polyana could become truly world-class, let's just hope it does not price itself out of the market..
DETAILS: RUSSIAN SKIING
Sochi Holidays (007 8622 609 800, www.sochi-holidays.ru) has seven-night packages to Moscow and Krasnaya Polyana from £950pp, including return flights, halfboard accommodation and transfers.
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