VANCOUVER -- The head of the organizing committee for the 2014 Winter Olympics says he thinks Vancouver's Olympic Village is a good deal for the city despite the financial problems around it.

"Certainly we know all about [the financial problems], but ... I should tell you from my point of view it's a temporary thing and the Olympic village, right in the heart of the Olympic city, will be a profitable project," Dmitry Chernyshenko, chief executive officer for the Sochi Olympic committee, said in an interview yesterday.

He was musing about the project after taking a walk by the site on False Creek, hours into a whirlwind tour of 2010 venues in Vancouver and Whistler that will last through the weekend.

He is part of a delegation that includes the head of the state corporation responsible for delivering all Olympic venues and infrastructure, and the president of the Russian Olympic Committee.

He said he has been following all aspects of the 2010 Vancouver-Whistler games from Russia, calling the project in B.C. "great [games] for a compact budget."

Vancouver has covered construction costs for the athletes village with a $100-million bailout loan, and may also take over financing of the troubled project by borrowing more money. Woes around the project have prompted one credit-rating agency to put the city on credit watch, and another to downgrade the city's credit rating.

But Mr. Chernyshenko said he was impressed by the village and its progress.

"I remember that one year and a half ago, it was an empty place of industrial zone," said Mr. Chernyshenko, who was in B.C. on his third Olympic-related visit.

Now, he said, the project is a world-class effort, notable for its environmental standards, including features for saving energy and water.

They "really could be considered a blueprint for us as well," he suggested.

Mr. Chernyshenko said the village is similar to one planned for Sochi, although the Russian venue will have more on-site facilities for training athletes, "but we've got a lot to learn from this project."

There are dramatic differences between the Games in 2010 and those for 2014. The budget for the Canadian Games will be $1.75-billion while $12-billion (U.S.) is being budgeted for Sochi, a Black Sea resort town of about 400,000 people, because all of the venues are being built from the ground up.

"We're completely different by the model of the Games because we were obliged to build everything from scratch while you are upgrading from existing venues and there are few venues to be built from the very beginning," he said.

Mr. Chernyshenko said the $12-billion budget may shift in coming months.

"The program has changed a lot, extended by additional program venues, objects, projects like a bypass road of the city and other things so, certainly, it will be different."

He said the Games organizers are struggling to make their project as recession-proof as possible with such measures as sophisticated budgeting, and consultations with Vancouver organizers on staying on budget and on time.