This article examines what image of Russia is being projected in official rhetoric about the Sochi Olympics. It is argued that the imagined community being displayed is a diverse, inclusive and tolerant nation, even an international example of ethnic conviviality. The article puts this narrative in historical perspective, relating it to the mnogonatsionalnost policies of tsarist, Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. This imagination, though explicitly very inclusive, rests on important exclusions and silences. By selective exhibitions of minority-groups the other is domesticated, stereotyped and reduced to kitsch and folklore, glossing over conflict-ridden histories and prevailing inequalities.