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Olympics organisers to mark one year before Games start

The festive events will take place both in Sochi and the administrative centres of eight federal districts of Russia

Фото EPA/ИТАР-ТАСС

Фото EPA/ИТАР-ТАСС

SOCHI, February 7 (Itar-Tass) –The organisers of the Sochi Olympics on Thursday will mark one year before the opening ceremony of the XXII Winter Games.

The festive events will take place both in Sochi and the administrative centres of eight federal districts of Russia - Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Khabarovsk and Pyatigorsk. The countdown to the first in the country’s history Winter Olympics will be launched in these cities.

In Sochi, the festivities will begin with the opening of the photo exhibition “The World through Children’s Eyes,” held within the framework of the Year of Museums of the Sochi 2014 Cultural Olympiad. The exhibition features photographs, dedicated to sports, photos from various sport events, including the opening of the Paralympic Games in London in 2012. Among the authors are photographers aged from 7 to 18 years from Russia, the CIS and the West. Among them are also children-orphans, children with disabilities and children in difficult life situation.

In the evening the festivities will move to the Big Ice Arena where a major festive event will be held at which IOC president Jacques Rogge will hand invitations to the 2014 Winter Olympics to the representatives of the National Olympic Committees of Canada, Brazil, South Korea and Russia.

The guests of the festivities will watch a colourful ice show staged by the Sochi 2014 ambassador - famous figure-skater Ilya Averbukh with the participation of the Russian figure skating stars: Sochi 2014ambassadors Irina Slutskaya and Tatiana Navka, as well as Roman Kostomarov, Alexei Yagudin, Tatyana Totmyanina and Maxim Marinin.

A total of about 300 artists will be engaged in the show. The unique ice performance will tell the audience about the main stages of preparation for the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi since the city won the Olympic bid in Guatemala City in 2007. The festivities will end with fireworks.

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