We live-interpreted Sochi’s Winter Olympics opening ceremony (LIVE BLOG)

Signing off

Hope you had fun following along with us. Stay tuned for Dan Peleschuk's cheatsheet on the opening ceremony when it's broadcast on NBC tonight.

Meanwhile, here's some reading material:

Sochi 2014: The gayest anti-gay Olympics ever

You can thank Putin for these 11 amazing new gay rights protest songs

These are the 6 openly gay athletes competing at the Sochi Olympics

The cost of the Sochi games: $19 million per Olympic athlete

6 things that might ruin the Sochi Olympics. Spoiler: Not one of them is ‘gay people.’

Meanwhile, just outside Sochi, a neighboring breakaway region is growing even more isolated

The US bobsled team is brought to you by Germany's BMW

The 35 most glorious fashion statements in the history of Olympic figure skating

Olympic torch is lit

And the games are officially open

Meanwhile…

Sochi's Olympic mascots freak everyone out

And we're back to the pageantry portion of the ceremony, with some Russian ballet, onion domes and a shoutout to Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace."

Sochi's Olympic mascots freak everyone out

Russia enters with t.A.T.u. music

If t.A.T.u. sounds vaguely familiar… remember this?

East Timor's first Winter Olympian

As you watch the ceremony tonight, keep an eye out for East Timor's first Winter Olympian Yohan Goutt-Goncalves.

The 19-year-old is on a mission to introduce East Timor to the world — and, for those who only know its history of turmoil, to show that there is more to the country and its people.

He’ll fulfill his mission on Friday, by carrying the flag of Timor Leste, as the country is officially known, in the Sochi Winter Olympics opening ceremony.

Read more about Goutt-Goncalves.

The athletes' parade begins

The countries began their stroll through the Olympic stadium:

And here's Team USA waiting in the wings:

The first minor malfunction of the night

Eagle-eyed viewers caught this moment where one of the snowflakes failed top open:

Putin's moment, the national anthem

Everything is floating

And we're off!

The opening ceremony started with:

Here's the view from Fisht stadium

The view from outside:

And athletes on their way (via the Twitter account of Sophie Caldwell, a member of the US ski team):

Sochi gets ready for the spotlight

If you're a cable or satellite subscriber, you can catch most of the Winter Olympics online. The one thing you won't be able to see is the opening ceremony that's kicking off the Olympics in Sochi on Friday.

"We want to put context to it, with the full pageantry it deserves," NBC Sports Group chairman Mark Lazarus told Variety.

We'll be following along with Senior Correspondent Dan Peleschuk as he gives us the highlights with cultural context.

You can find him here on Twitter.

And you can find the folks from NBC News on Twitter here.