YAKUTSK, November 8 (R-Sport) – The Sochi Olympic torch has made a spectacular journey deep into one of the world's biggest diamond mines as the Winter Games relay continues its record-breaking trip around Russia.
The torch was delivered Friday to the base of the 525-meter (1,730 feet) deep kimberlite pipe named Mir.
The Mir mine is one of the world's top 15 diamond producers, and is one of several mines in the Republic of Sakha that collectively account for 25 percent of the world's diamond output.
On Saturday, the flame is to arrive in Sakha's capital city of Yakutsk - 4,900 kilometers (3,100 miles) east of Moscow – where it will be transported by dog and reindeer sleighs. That will coincide with an unlit Olympic torch being taken on a spacewalk from the International Space Station in a side project.
The torch relay for the February 7-23 Games started on Moscow’s Red Square in Moscow on October 7. It is to take in all of Russia's 83 regions on its 56,000-kilometer (35,440 mile) trip.
