Conjuring up the ghosts of Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky and Peter the Great, Vladimir Putin put on a show last night to rival London and Beijing, with a simple message: Russia is back and as hungry as ever.

In a feat reflective of the $51bn epic Sochi experiment itself, a giant troika of horses floated through the freezing air, the workers’ revolution was reimagined as a Malevich-inspired musical and an inflatable St Basil’s coalesced on the stage. Volcanoes spewed fire, fireworks lit up the stadium and soft flurries of snow fell on command from the sky. Mr Putin bowed and waved.

If many have doubted Mr Putin’s decision to host the Winter Olympics in a tiny beachfront town that had little pre-existing modern day infrastructure, the president’s opening ceremony could be seen as a strong rebuke. Homage was made to Peter the Great and Russia’s Imperial capital St Petersburg – built against all architectural logic on a marshland – and the Stalinist skyscrapers of Soviet Moscow that remain standing to this day, as viewers were taken on the tumultuous ride that is Russia’s history.