At the opening ceremony of the XXII Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, an 11-year-old recited the Cyrillic alphabet and guided an 18-segment presentation of Russian history that skipped the gulags and the Stalinist purges, a choir from the ministry of internal affairs performed the Daft Punk song “Get Lucky,” and one of five lighted snowflakes that descended from the stadium roof failed to open up into an Olympic ring.