MOSCOW, July 22 (RIA Novosti) - The construction...

"Today, as a result of making a decision on the optimization, primarily in relation to those facilities that will function as sports venues, the Olympic Games will cost 195.3 billion rubles," Kozak said.

The cost of building facilities for the Sochi Olympics was earlier estimated at 206 billion rubles ($6.6 billion).

Kozak said that 102 billion rubles ($3.3 billion) would be allocated from the federal budget and the remaining 93 billion rubles ($2.9 billion) would be provided by investors.

Sochi won the right to host the Olympics at an IOC session in Guatemala in July 2007 after a close race with South Korea"s Pyeongchang and Austria"s Salzburg.

Russia has never hosted the Winter Olympics. Moscow hosted the Summer Olympics in 1980, but the event was marred by a U.S.-led boycott involving more than 60 countries.

Several western countries called on the IOC last year to deprive Russia of its right to host the Games in 2014 after the country fought

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