Russia arguably shocked the world this past Friday night with a stellar opening ceremony performance.
According to The New York Times, this opening ceremony cost three times as much as all winter Olympic ceremonies combined.
The ceremony opened with tributes to the great accomplishments of Russian history.
Small tributes were made to authors like Tolstoy, and musicians like Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky.
What was great about the ceremony was the national pride that Russia gave off.
In a matter of three hours, the world was given a glimpse of what it means to be Russian.
The ceremony performances took viewers through a thousand years of Russian history, and paid tribute to the fact that Russians describe themselves as dreamers.
One of the most impressive aspects of this $50 billion Olympics is the architecture. The Olympic complex that was built was designed by Jerry Anderson.
According to Hereandnow.org, the complex stretches from the coast of The Black Sea, to the tops of the Caucasus Mountains.
Although the performances and pyrotechnics were impressive, there was one little mishap that everyone noticed.
During the beginning of the ceremony snowflakes emerged from the ceiling expand and form the five Olympic rings.
The snowflakes started out as small, but as they descended further from the ceiling they began to expand to look like the rings for the games.
However, the fifth ring never expanded, leaving an incredibly noticeable mistake.
The Olympic rings are symbolic to the games, and this was a serious mistake for the first night.
I wonder if Vladimir Putin sentenced whoever made this mistake to Siberia?
Regardless of this mishap, the rest of the ceremony was tasteful, and made me feel like I should have taken sports more seriously because I now have an incredible urge to be an Olympian.
I think by far the best moment of the night was the lighting of the torch.
From the moment Maria Sharapova brought the torch into the stadium, the world was on the edge of its seats waiting for the official start of the 2014 Olympic Games.
Former Russian Olympic hockey player, Vladislov Tretiak and former Olympic figure skater Irina Rodman, were given the honor to light the torch to start the games.
The two ran from the main stadium where the ceremony took place, across the complex concord, to light the flame.
The flame itself was impressive.
The torch followed a path up a curved incline, to the top of the cauldron to ignite the symbolic start.
An impressive fireworks display erupted immediately and I could not help but feel excited for the upcoming events to take place in the next two weeks.
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