SOCHI SCENE: Olympic shopping

SOCHI, Russia — The Olympic competition isn’t just in the venues. It’s pretty fierce at the Olympic superstore too.

Located in the Olympic Park near Fisht Stadium, the store carries a variety of souvenirs from the Sochi Games.

The wait to get in stretched to 25 minutes at one point on Sunday, with a handful of people being let in at a time.

Inside, customers jammed the area with jackets, hoodies and T-shirts, trying on items in the aisle and casting aside any they didn’t want. Clothing piled up on shelves with sizes mixed together.

Plush mascots of varying sizes awaited buyers. There were coffee cups, towels, key chains, magnets, nesting dolls and suitcases to get it all home. White mittens with colored fingers and `Sochi 2014’ selling for 500 rubles (about $14) were piled in big boxes. A wall of cubby holes containing more T-shirts was being ransacked by customers checking out the designs and sizes. Women trying on charm bracelets circled the jewelry counter.

Surprisingly, the store didn’t have a single Olympic pin for sale, unlike previous superstores that featured a wide variety of the souvenirs popular with collectors and traders.