On February 14, 2013, the Guardian published an article titled "How international coverage missed the point of the Sochi opening ceremony".
"Forget about the fifth snowflake – the Olympic pageant tried to create a new, post-Soviet cultural canon – and it largely worked", reads the subtitle of the text by Mary Dejevsky.
"So it is disappointing that international coverage of the opening ceremony fixed on two things: the failure of the fifth snowflake to transform itself into an Olympic ring, and the peculiarity – as it was seen – of the Cyrillic alphabet that starts ABVG, rather than ABCD", writes Dejevsky. "But there was much more that deserved attention."
"Together, the alphabet and the pageant combined to present a Russia that was culturally inclusive, both traditional and modern, in which each age, from Muscovy through to the pluses and minuses of Soviet times, had its allotted place. Yes, some of the most painful aspects were missing – the gulag, for a start; Solzhenitsyn was rejected (too divisive?) for S – but there was an encouraging lack of dogma and militarism. You could say something similar of London 2012. But the idea – to present a Russia for today that built national pride on a continuum of cultural and scientific distinction – was largely realised", reads the article.
