Many of the letters features some of Russia's most famous writers such as Dostoyevsky, Nabokov, Tolstoy, Chekhov, and countless others that have impacted Russian history, culture, literature, and philosophy.

The mishap was later self-mocked by the organizers at the closing ceremony where one of the roundrelay dance groups symbolizing the Olympic rings "failed" to expand.

A projected rendering of the Earth showing each competing country (along with their names in English, French and Russian, respectively) was displayed on the stadium floor as they entered.

[7] Performances journeyed through Russian history through the eyes of a little girl called Lyubov ("Love"), played by Liza Temnikova, touching on Russia's art, music, and ballet.

[18] The ball included music by Aleksander Sergeyevich Zatsepin and ended with the fifth movement (Rondo) of Alfred Schnittke's Concerto Grosso No.

[19] Fourteen columns rose from the floor, then disappeared, replaced first by scenes of the Russian Revolution and Soviet industrialization, followed by a giant moving reproduction of the famous statue Worker and Kolkhoz Woman made by Vera Mukhina in 1937, with hammer and sickle flying over the arena, symbolising the period of great industrialisation following the Bolshevik Revolution.

[20][21] Dozens of men carried rockets and the name of Yuri Gagarin appeared on the floor, followed up skyscrapers emerging against a background of modern typography.

[11] The organizing committee initially wanted to include scenes of Soviet victory in the World War Two, but the IOC protested and the plans were abandoned.

The malfunction of the fifth Olympic snowflake ring was not seen during the telecast of the ceremony in Russia, where both Channel One and VGTRK quickly cut to footage of the scene from a dress rehearsal, where the sequence worked correctly.

[29] BBM Canada ratings for CBC's live, repeat and online broadcasts of the ceremony totalled 6.974 million viewers.

The Independent's Simon Rice found some portions of the ceremony to be "confusing" and other "spectacular", while describing the cauldron lighting as "an unimaginative domino of flames".

[20] Katherine Monk of Canada's Postmedia News described the athletes' clothing as "a lot sexier than the old Communist-era cardboard garb".

[32] Kathy Lally and Will Englund of The Washington Post commented that "The scale bordered on the colossal" and called the ceremony "poetry – in motion".

[33] Despite Russia's stance on LGBT people (including its 2013 law banning the distribution of LGBT "propaganda" to minors, which had been a major concern leading up to the Olympics), the Huffington Post noted that the opening ceremony, ironically, featured tributes to "some of history's most widely acclaimed and definitely gay Russians", including composer Peter Tchaikovsky (1840–1893), ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky (1889–1950), and patron of arts, and founder of Ballets Russes, Sergei Diaghilev.

[10][37] Aside from athletes and members of the IOC, 5 multilateral leaders and representatives from more than 80 countries (included at least 60 heads of state and government) attended the opening ceremony.