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Sochi Russia 2014 Winter Paralympics Games Closing Ceremony


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. Is it impossible to appreciate anything about last month Winter Olympics without pushing ideology and politics ahead of it?

I would think so. To me, the whole 2014 Games/Paras are just a sham and a cover a dictator used for his own nefarious designs. If I had a medal won during these Games, I would have felt it was cheapened by Putin's duplicitous actions.

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came across this clip about young Muscovites letting their hair down and having some fun. It's something that could've been like a rehearsal for a Sochi routine!!

It could indeed, in more ways than one. As you can tell from the sophisticated routines and multi-camera work, this is not exactly a traditional flashmob; it's mostly a fully-rehearsed live outdoor dance performance in street clothes, filmed on 26 February 2012 for release two days later via YouTube and Russian social networks.

According to a commenter on an obscure Russian blog, the dancers had been attracted by ads along these lines:

Работа: 25 и 26 февраля- молодежь на музыкальный Флешмоб.Оплачивется - м. Воробьевы горы -Москва

(= "Jobs : February 25 and 26 , young people on a music Flashmob. Paid - p[lace]. Sparrow Hills -Moscow")

The original title was Цекало и Puttin` отожгли на Воробьевых горах (= "Cekalo & Puttin' hot/cool on Sparrow Hills" [отожгли literally means "annealed]), and the original 28 February uploader was "puttin2012".

Cekalo would be Alexander "Sasha" Cekalo, a well-known Russian TV personality, musician and producer (of films, TV and stage shows). "Puttin'" refers, of course, to the song "Puttin' on the Ritz", and not in any way to a somewhat homophonic Russian politician who was seeking election to the Presidency on 4 March.

Now we move beyond cynicism into a sort of tragedy. Cekalo is a Ukrainian name, and Sasha was born in Kiev. His older brother Victor, also in showbiz, still lives there. Interviewed some years ago, he said:

пока Саша Цекало будет в России, и пока Витя Цекало будет на Украине, никогда, пока мы живы, эти государства не будут враждовать! Запомните, пожалуйста, это, люди там, наверху!

(= "While Sasha Cekalo is in Russia, and Victor Cekalo in Ukraine, never, as long as we are alive, will these states ever quarrel. Remember that please, people there, upstairs.")

Russia has evolved the "panem et circenses" principle to a state of sophisticated art. Get your puppet president in Ukraine to invite help from the Russian army just as the Olympics are getting under way, and you have a double dose of patriotic euphoria, with a brilliant follow-up for the Paralympics.

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It could indeed, in more ways than one. As you can tell from the sophisticated routines and multi-camera work, this is not exactly a traditional flashmob; it's mostly a fully-rehearsed live outdoor dance performance in street clothes, filmed on 26 February 2012 for release two days later via YouTube and Russian social networks.

According to a commenter on an obscure Russian blog, the dancers had been attracted by ads along these lines:

Работа: 25 и 26 февраля- молодежь на музыкальный Флешмоб.Оплачивется - м. Воробьевы горы -Москва

(= "Jobs : February 25 and 26 , young people on a music Flashmob. Paid - p[lace]. Sparrow Hills -Moscow")

The original title was Цекало и Puttin` отожгли на Воробьевых горах (= "Cekalo & Puttin' hot/cool on Sparrow Hills" [отожгли literally means "annealed"]), and the original 28 February uploader was "puttin2012".

Cekalo would be Alexander "Sasha" Cekalo, a well-known Russian TV personality, musician and producer (of films, TV and stage shows). "Puttin'" refers, of course, to the song "Puttin' on the Ritz", and not in any way to a somewhat homophonic Russian politician who was seeking election to the Presidency on 4 March.

Now we move beyond cynicism into a sort of tragedy. Cekalo is a Ukrainian name, and Sasha was born in Kiev. His older brother Victor, also in showbiz, still lives there. Interviewed some years ago, he said:

пока Саша Цекало будет в России, и пока Витя Цекало будет на Украине, никогда, пока мы живы, эти государства не будут враждовать! Запомните, пожалуйста, это, люди там, наверху!

(= "While Sasha Cekalo is in Russia, and Victor Cekalo in Ukraine, never, as long as we are alive, will these states ever quarrel. Remember that please, people there, upstairs.")

Russia has evolved the "panem et circenses" principle to a state of sophisticated art. Get your puppet president in Ukraine to invite help from the Russian army just as the Olympics are getting under way, and you have a double dose of patriotic euphoria, with a brilliant follow-up for the Paralympics.

Wow, JMark...great sleuthing. Hadn't realized there would be a lot of foreboding clouds to that simple incident. I wonder how he got those Red Army privates to join in. And they did look like real military guys. Maybe they were of Ukrainian descent???

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Hadn't realized there would be a lot of foreboding clouds to that simple incident. I wonder how he got those Red Army privates to join in. And they did look like real military guys. Maybe they were of Ukrainian descent???

I'd say Sasha Cekalo got all the help he needed simply by being the presenter and co-producer of a TV show (Большая разница) which is popular across most of the former Soviet Union, including Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic states etc.

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while they were so slavish to the 3 mascots in the regular Big O ceremonies; nothing was seen or heard of the two Para mascots in the Para ceremonies. What a contrast of night and day.

JMark, the Paralympic mascots did appear at the Closing Ceremony contrary to your observation...

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That's an intriguing find!

If the photo album on the RIA website is in chronological order, then it shows the entry of the athletes, which was part of the pre-ceremony (at least for UK television purposes). So maybe the mascots were included (there's another photo of mascot dolls in the album) but excluded, which would be elegantly subtle.

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Or could that have been at the Para Opening? In either case, were the Russian and/or the OBS world feed directed to cut away from them??

The RIA-N photo album was definitely labelled "Closing Ceremony of the Winter Paralympic Games in Sochi". Given that, as is becoming traditional in Paralympic Closing ceremonies, all athletes except the flag bearers were settled in their places before the start of the broadcast, there was nothing to cut away from (unless anybody out there in Canada or somewhere can confirm that the teams' pre-show entrance was in the world feed, just not used in the UK).

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The RIA-N photo album was definitely labelled "Closing Ceremony of the Winter Paralympic Games in Sochi". Given that, as is becoming traditional in Paralympic Closing ceremonies, all athletes except the flag bearers were settled in their places before the start of the broadcast, there was nothing to cut away from (unless anybody out there in Canada or somewhere can confirm that the teams' pre-show entrance was in the world feed, just not used in the UK).

Oh, I see...becuz it takes forever to seat the remaining parathletes. Got it. So then, technically, Ray of Light and Snowflake were not part of the Official portions of the ceremony. Mystery solved.

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Oh, I see...becuz it takes forever to seat the remaining parathletes. Got it. So then, technically, Ray of Light and Snowflake were not part of the Official portions of the ceremony. Mystery solved.

The beauty of it is that, for the (largely Russian) stadium spectators, the entry of the athletes clearly was part of the ceremony- hence the presence of the mascots. Russia does political manipulation the way the West does superstore design- with immense cunning and subtlety.

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