Russia in the Putin Era

The extravagant, sometimes kitschy opening ceremony of the Sochi Olympics on Feb. 7 gave us a cleaned-up, World’s Fair version of Russian history, celebrating the glories of its scientific and artistic achievements while airbrushing the horrors of its Stalinist past. At the same time, the ceremony was devised to try to make the world forget the dark side of President Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia — its smothering of dissent, its oppressive antigay laws — and to promote an image of the country as a modernizing great power ascendant on the world stage.