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Aeroflot jet brings Olympic flame to Moscow’s Vnukovo airport

Moscow City will host the first stage of the Olympic Flame Relay that will last through to October 9

Photo by press service of the organizing committee "Sochi-2014"

Photo by press service of the organizing committee "Sochi-2014"

MOSCOW, October 6 (Itar-Tass) - An Aeroflot jet has delivered the Olympic flame for the 2014 Winter Games from Greece to Moscow’s Vnukovo airport.

The ceremony of lighting the main symbol of the Sochi Games took place in Greece September 29.

Moscow City will host the first stage of the Olympic Flame Relay that will last through to October 9.

From the airport, a motorcade escorted by members of the Nochnye Volki /Nighttime Wolves/ biking club will proceed to Red Square where a gala lighting of the Olympic cauldron will be held and a symbolic start will be given to the flame relay.

The start will consist of ten stages, each of them located inside the walls of the Kremlin.

An official voyage of the Olympic flame across the territory of Russia will begin a day later and the St Basil’s Slope - a small square between the St Basil’s Cathedral and the Moskva River adjoining the southeastern corner of the Kremlin Wall -- will become its starting point.

The first athlete to carry the flame is the five-time Olympic champion in synchronized swimming, Anastasia Davydova.

The Olympic flame will be taken to all the 83 constituent regions of Russia, into orbit and to the floor of Lake Baikal. The relay will finish February 7 in Sochi when the 22nd Winter Olympic Games begin.

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