Fireworks followed the torch lighting at the ceremony's end.

Russia Opens Sochi Games With Pageantry and Pride

International New York Times | 7 Feb. 2014

Anna Netrebko sang the Olympic Hymn as the Olympic flag was raised.

Performers dancing to Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake.” Doug Mills/The New York Times

A Russian Avant-Garde art portion of the ceremony. Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

A woman reached towards the sky in a ballroom scene inspired by “War and Peace.” Doug Mills/The New York Times

A giant train was suspended in Fisht Olympic Stadium in Sochi, Russia. Doug Mills/The New York Times

A performer was lifted in the stadium. Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Performers marched during a portion of the show that was a nod to Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.” Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

A troika was attached to a sun, with St. Basil’s Cathedral inflating in the background. Doug Mills/The New York Times

SOCHI, Russia — With an outsize extravaganza that reached deep into the repertoire of classical music and ballet, traversed the sights and sounds of the world’s largest geopolitical expanse, soared into outer space, and swept across 400 years of history in a celebration of everything from Czarist military might to Soviet Monumentalism, a swaggering, resurgent Russia turned its Olympic aspirations into reality on Friday night.

After seven years of building to this moment — the opening of what is reputed to be the most expensive Games in the history of global sport — the message of the over-the-top ceremony was simply this: In a big way, Russia is back.

As if there was any doubt.

(Where Russia may be headed — amid an economic slowdown, continuing rights abuses and suppression of political dissent that have drawn sharp criticism, especially in the West — was a question for another day.)

The 18-chapter, 2.5-hour performance began at the symbolic moment of 8:14 p.m. — 20:14, as time is counted here — and provided a majestic spectacle that included a glowing troika of horses streaking through a snowbound sky, the multicolor onion domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral bobbing in the air; literary references to Gogol, Tolstoy and Nabokov; images of behemoth post-Revolutionary skyscrapers and space capsules; as well as performances by Russia’s storied ballerinas, musicians and singers.