No, it's not an optical illusion - Going to the bathroom during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi could be an eye-opener with dual toilet cubicles.

BBC journalist Steve Rosenberg happened to use the men's bathroom at the Laura Cross-Country Ski and Biathlon Center and quickly found that individual stall will not be available for athletes at the venue. He shared the following pictures over his Twitter page. 

Rosenberg shot a twit pic two toilets beside each other captioned, "Seeing double in the Gentlemen's Lo at the Olympic Biathlon Center #Sochi."

The picture has stirred mixed reactions from social media users and Rosenberg then followed up with a re-tweet of the photo captioned "Just to make clear, this is not photoshopped. You can see my reflection in the flusher. #Sochi #Olympic loo."

A BBC feature reports that some comments likened the dual toilets to the duality of Russia's leaders, one president and one prime minister, with one user tweeting "It's the tandem toilet... One seat for Putin, the other for Medvedev." And a photo has surfaced that was edited to include a portrait of the two leaders situated above the loos.

Rosenberg adds that there were also comments floated about the controversial Russian law that restricts the spread of information about homosexuality. One warns, "Be careful - this is gay propaganda." While others mock the security saying, "One toilet seat is for the athlete," said a networker, "The other is for the KGB officer secretly guarding him."

R-Sport news agency says communal toilets are typical at Russian soccer stadiums, reports Yahoo! News.

The firestorm was quickly caught by opposition leader Alexei Navalny who uses the issue to inquire on budget utilization costing $ 50 billion (£30bn; 1,700bn roubles). Navalny retweeted the photo commenting, "This is a men's toilet in a Sochi Olympics media centre for 1.5bn roubles [£27m; $45m]."

Daily News writes that after the uproar of the photo, officials have since replaced the toilets with cabinets.

The games will begin on February 7 and coming to a close on February 23. The Sochi organizing committee has yet to comment on the picture.