A User's Guide to the Bizarre Toilets of Sochi

So you want to poop in Sochi. One of the unexpected highlights of the lead-up to the Olympics has been the discovery that many of the bathrooms in and around Sochi are, shall we say, Russian Unorthodox. If you or a loved one are heading to the Olympics, you may need a primer. Allow us to help. The Russians, with their fatalist sense of humor, have embraced the chaos. Holding it up as emblematic of corruption or incompetence, Sochi toilets have become something of a meme on Russian social media. (I'm not sure who created the image above, which makes a pun by mashing up Sochi and the Russian word for taking a crap. I found it here first, and if anyone can decipher the signature or point me in the direction of the creator, it'd be appreciated.) But the Sochi toilet meme has led to confusion. Russians are posting any old photo of bizarre bathrooms and claiming they're from Sochi. So first let us weed out the impostors.