Bananas and skis in Russia's Winter Olympics bid city

MOSCOW, June 28 (Reuters) With banana trees growing in gardens along its Black Sea beachfront, Russia's summer resort city of Sochi does not fit the usual image of a Winter Olympic Games venue.

Sochi is bidding to host the 2014 Games and on July 4 in Guatemala the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will announce whether it or the two other shortlisted bidders -- Salzburg in Austria and Pyeongchang in South Korea -- has won.

On the face of it, the Sochi bid is a paradox, attempting to stage a winter games in a semi-tropical city with not much in the way of winter sports pedigree.

The city's first and only ice rink was put up temporarily to coincide with a visit by IOC inspectors this year.

''At the moment, most people come to Sochi to get a tan and have a swim in the summer,'' said Alexander Zhukov, a deputy prime minister and part of the Sochi bid team.

But in the mild winter, when the temperature only occasionally dips below zero, cars can be seen driving through the city with skis strapped to their roof.

The reason for this is a quirk of nature. A few kilometres outside Sochi the road climbs sharply and enters a tunnel beneath the mountains. On the other side, it emerges into deep winter.

''That is the uniqueness of the city,'' said local resident Eduard Filippov. ''In Sochi it will be raining and you will have a temperature of 12 degrees Celsius, and then when you go through the tunnel the snow is up to your knees.'' CHEERING CHILDREN The other asset touted by the Sochi bid organisers is public enthusiasm for the games.

Opinion polls quoted by the organisers show 80 per cent support nationwide for staging the games in Sochi -- unsurprising in a country fanatical about ice hockey and cross-country skiing but which has never hosted a Winter Olympics.

As with many things in Russia, the state plays a crucial role.

The cheering crowds of children who greeted the IOC inspectors throughout their visit to Sochi may have been helped by the local officials cancelling all lessons in schools, Russian media reported.

President Vladimir Putin has said his government will underwrite the cost of the games and he will go in person to Guatemala to support the bid at the IOC session.

At his beachfront home near Sochi, Andrei Korutun is worried about the Olympics. His village was founded by a group of Old Believers, a strict branch of the Russian Orthodox faith who never drink and wear long beards.

Many fled abroad to escape persecution but the community near Sochi returned from exile and settled there in 1911 after Tsar Nicholas II gave them plots of land.

If Sochi wins, a few of the houses will be demolished to make way for the Games' coastal hub, slated to be built in the fields behind the village.

''We are not against holding the Olympics here ... we are patriots,'' said Korutun. ''But if you move these old people out of here they are going to die, like a tree when you uproot it.'' Reuters TB DB1006