The Paralympic flame arrived in Sochi yesterday, and the three-day torch relay has already begun at the Rosa Khutor Alpine Resort.
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© RIA Novosti . Mihail Mokrushin
The Paralympic flame arrived in Sochi yesterday, and the three-day torch relay has already begun at the Rosa Khutor Alpine Resort.
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© RIA Novosti . Vitaliy Ankov
The torch was lit in the far-eastern Russian city of Vladivostok on February 26 by local arm-wrestling and powerlifting champion Ruslan Chukanov.
The Paralympic torch-lighting ceremony in Vladivostok.
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© RIA Novosti . Valeriy Blinov
The Paralympic torch relay crossed nine Siberian towns on February 27, with the torch being lit a different way in each town. Blacksmiths in Omsk lit it with a symbolic feather from a mythical firebird. In Buryatia, it was lit by the lamp of a town elder, and the people of Biisk lit it with a rocket engine nozzle. In Khakassia, the torch did not pass by without the involvement of local shamans (pictured), and in Altai milk was fed to the flame.
The flame was lit in Yekaterinburg with molten metal from blast furnaces at five iron and steel plants in the region on February 28. Local steelworkers made a unique cauldron resembling a stone flower with five petals for the ceremony.
St. Petersburg hosted the torch relay on March 1. The torch was lit from one of the city’s famous Rostral Columns, a series of towers built in the early 1800s to serve as beacons for ships. The flame slid down a metal cable and lit a special cauldron which, in turn, ignited the first torch of the relay.
European power-lifting champion Tatiana Smirnova, who took part in the Summer Paralympics in London, carried the torch.
The torch relay arrived in Kaliningrad on March 1. Photo: Russia’s 2012 champion in tandem bike racing Pyotr Matkov, left.
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© RIA Novosti . Mihail Voskresenskiy
Moscow hosted the torch relay on March 2. Photo: Figure skater Yulia Lipnitskaya, gold-medalist at the Winter Olympics in Sochi.
The Paralympic torch relay also passed through the Kubinka airbase near Moscow, with Andrei Alexeyev, commander of the Russkiye Vityazi (Russian Knights) aerobatic team, lighting the Olympic cauldron.
The mountain resort where all the main Paralympic events will be held hosted its first day of the torch relay on March 5.
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© RIA Novosti . Mihail Mokrushin
The Paralympic flame will travel through central Sochi on March 6, and then it will return to the mountains once again.
