Fact Check

Half Toilet in Sochi

Photograph shows a half toilet in the Olympic city of Sochi, Russia?

Published Feb. 12, 2014

Claim:

Claim:   Photograph shows a half toilet in the Olympic city of Sochi, Russia.


FALSE


Example:   [Collected via Twitter, February 2014]


You've seen the double toilet. Now, the half toilet!

WUT? how does this even happen? This is some half-assed bathroom design in Sochi



 

Origins:   The above image showing a bizarre half toilet was widely circulated in February 2014 in conjunction with the opening of that year's Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and was offered as an emblematic depiction of the slipshod planning and construction of Olympic facilities (some real, some not) that various western reporters had chronicled discovering in that city.

The origin of this image is unclear (it might be, for example, a photo of an art exhibit, a digital creation, or a staged scene), but it appeared as an entry in a captioning contest posted on the web site Bits & Pieces back in August 2013, six months before the opening of the 2014 Winter Olympics, so it obviously wasn't a recent photo snapped at an Olympic facility in Sochi as claimed when it made the rounds of social media in February 2014.

Last updated:   12 February 2014

David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.

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