The opening ceremony of the XXII Winter Olympics begins at 8:14 p.m. Moscow time Friday. So far, the Sochi Olympics have not enjoyed an auspicious start.

The news coverage for the last year has been dominated by the alleged corruption surrounding the development of the Olympic site, Russia's new antigay legislation, and the threat of terrorist attacks originating from a volatile Caucasus. And now that athletes and journalists have begun to arrive at Sochi, the headlines are shabby hotel rooms, bad plumbing, stray dogs and serious questions about Russia's ability to manage such a large-scale sporting event.

You might think that the wave of bad publicity would greatly concern the Kremlin. After all, Sochi is supposed to be the coming-out party for the new, modern Russia that has arisen under the leadership of Vladimir Putin. The enormous spending, dwarfing the sums spent to stage other Winter Olympic Games, has been justified as necessary to stage the most spectacular Olympics ever as well as to transform a sleepy and rundown Soviet summer resort into a world-class year-round tourist destination. Putting up journalists covering the games in dirty, poorly furnished and incomplete housing surely must be a PR disaster that deeply worries Moscow.

To think this way is to completely misunderstand governance po-Russki. From the Kremlin's perspective, the XXII Winter Olympics are already an immense success.

The largest and most expensive sporting events in history all have taken place in kleptocracies, particularly in post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine. Why are kleptocratic governments so eager to host huge sports events, especially ones that require huge infrastructure spending? There are two simple reasons. Undertaking enormous construction projects is one of the best ways to mask large-scale theft from the government budget. And hosting prestigious sporting events appeals to nationalist pride and is more visible to voters than spending on education or health care infrastructure.

Similarly, for Russia's political elites, the Olympic Games have been a marvelous banquet of corruption and theft of national resources. Of the $50 billion that has been spent for the games, it is widely estimated that as much as $30 billion was stolen. And of the other $20 billion, it is likely that $10 billion to $15 billion was simply wasted through incompetence or in overcoming the severe challenges of staging a winter sports event in a subtropical setting. In short, as much as 90 percent of the spending on Sochi was pure waste and graft. And from the Kremlin's perspective, this is highly cost-effective.

At Sochi, for every 3 stolen or wasted dollars, someone with the right connections netted $2, a much better yield than ordinary burglars and thieves expect for stolen goods. To date, most Russians seem unconcerned about the cost of the Winter Olympics and the enormous larceny involved. Most Russians can afford to visit Sochi, and Russia's state-controlled media certainly isn't broadcasting stories about hotels without functioning toilets. And having experienced systematic corruption under the czars, the Soviets, under Yeltsin, and for years under Putin, Russians are resigned to government malfeasance.

Part of the official rationale for the development of Sochi was that after the Olympics it was going to be a major international tourist destination. This is another government-created fairy tale. Sochi is distinctly not suited to compete with European or North American ski venues. Just getting to Sochi is a long and expensive journey, and getting the requisite Russian visa is an expensive and unpleasant bureaucratic hassle. And a ski holiday in Russia is never going to have the allure of the French Alps or Vail, Colo. In short, Sochi was grand theft from the beginning, and the Winter Games merely the pretext for the crime.

Hopefully, there will be no terrorist attacks, but Russia's infamously corrupt and ineffective security services may turn out to be a poor guarantee of safety. Maybe the Games will proceed more or less without major glitches, but the early signs are not reassuring.

But Sochi will never turn out to have been a good investment in developing Russia's tourism potential, and the billions stolen from the Russian people will never be recovered. But then again, for the perpetrators of this heist, none of these were ever serious considerations.

There is one risk for the Kremlin. The Russian populace has been encouraged to expect gold medals for Team Russia, especially in all-important men's hockey. A majority of Russians believe that Russia will be one of the top three countries in the gold medal tally. But the bookmakers are calling for Norway, the United States, Germany and Canada to finish ahead of Russia. And Canada is a narrow favorite for the gold in men's hockey. If Russia finishes behind Austria or South Korea in gold, and fails to medal at all in men's hockey, then you may see a genuine political crisis in Moscow.