man, you probably never been to Sochi. I've been there. You can try to research/Google the agricultural profile of bananas and the climate profile of Sochi. This is snow in Sochi:
>So, growing bananas in Russia hardly seems like nonsense.
Well, the same thing was thought about corn in 60ies (state-wide corn enforcing campaign, 40+ years later still a source of countless jokes as you can force people to plant corn, yet you can't force corn to grow in that climate) and about putting monkeys into Siberia in 70s-80s (fortunately it was only a small pack of monkey that experiment was conducted on)
Your pictures are blocked at work for me, but Wikipedia shows pictures of both snowy mountains and lush sea-side vegetation in Sochi. Elevation as well as latitude affects growing conditions.
As far as growing corn in Russia or having monkeys in Siberia goes, they are entirely different matters as to whether or not it is possible to grow bananas in Russia.
Wikipedia reports that Sochi lies in a 8b/9a hardiness zone. The banana species I linked to can grow in hardiness zone 5. I maintain my position that it is possible to grow bananas in Russia.
>As far as growing corn in Russia or having monkeys in Siberia goes, they are entirely different matters as to whether or not it is possible to grow bananas in Russia.
you win as your logic's complexity is beyond my understanding considering that Iowa is in zone 5 and corn can be grown even in zones 2-4.
And, there are several species of cold-hardy bananas: http://treesandshrubs.about.com/od/selection/tp/hardybanana....
So, growing bananas in Russia hardly seems like nonsense.