The ceremonies producer Konstantin Ernst hoped that the upcoming opening ceremony of the Sochi Winter Olympic Games Friday night would carry the name of the country in an artistic and metaphorical way.

"When our bid won the tender and we assumed responsibility for the opening ceremony of the Games, we certainly felt painfully the burden of this responsibility. We realized that the opening ceremony carries the name of the country," Ernst told the press on Friday.

"You know how people say that the best way to try to understand something is to try to explain it to others, so when we prepared the ceremony we made a mental journey back into the history of Russia, bearing in mind that we would be working for billions of viewers across the globe and we want them to experience this love of Russia; we want to carry a very strong emotional message for this unprecedented international audience," said Ernst, also the director general of Channel One Russia.

Ernst noted one of the best parts of the London Olympics opening ceremony was the video about Queen Elizabeth appearing to jump out of an aeroplane and he ensured that the ceremonies team in Sochi would also give the audience a surprise.

"I hope that we will have a surprise for you but we are not going to feature any topics that will be only interesting for Russians. We are not going to burden our foreign spectators with that."

As Russia has a very long and vivid history, Ernst chose the most distinguished Russian cultural elements to be shown in the opening ceremony.

"We wanted to show the main achievements of Russia. We may not boast pop bands that would be famous all over the world, but definitely we have something to boast in classical music, in arts, in painting, etc."

"I'm sure you will hear a lot of beautiful music; you will see a small, perfect ballet show. It will be performed by the best ballet dancers of Russia."