Did you get a chance to watch the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games at Sochi the other day? Well, apparently tens of millions around the world did. It has been reported that the Russians spent $50 billion dollars on the Olympics and President Putin is going out of his way to make sure that it is perfect. There was a huge display at the opening ceremony that included scenes from Russia's past history.
In one part of the opening ceremony, you see gigantic statues of the head of a man and a woman floating into the stadium accompanied by statues of huge hands with the hammer and sickle in them. Both the hammer and the sickle were used by the Russian communists are their official symbol. The hammer represented the workers in society and the sickle represented the farmers.
It looks as if this was a "big salute" to Russia's communist past by the Russian organizers. It was reported that when the nostalgic communist symbols appeared in the stadium, a huge cheer arose from the Russian crowd. It's pretty sad that they used such extremist symbolism in the opening ceremonies, especially in the Olympics. This isn't the 1980 Moscow games you know! It is estimated that 100 million people died worldwide under the symbolism of the communist ideology in the 20th century. Could you imagine the response if an Olympic host used statues of gigantic swastikas and fascist symbols?
To see photos and tweets on the communist symbols, click here.
István
