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Over 1,000 torchbearers to take part in Paralympics-2014 flame relay

Every day, the flame will be lighted simultaneously in several towns at a time

© ITAR-TASS/Sergey Fadeichev

MOSCOW, February 26, /ITAR-TASS/. A relay-race of the flame of the Paralympic Games-2014 begins in a number of Russia's cities on Wednesday.

Mikhail Terentyev, General Secretary of the Paralympic Committee of Russia, told a news conference at Itar-Tass on Tuesday that the relay would set out from Cape Dezhnev, Eurasia's easternmost point, at 10:00, Moscow time. The flame will be carried across the eight Federal Districts of Russia by 1,500 people.

Every day, the flame will be lighted simultaneously in several towns at a time. The relay is to end at Fisht Stadium in Sochi on March 7, the day of the opening of the Paralympic Games.

Paralympians, as well as organisers of charity foundations, people prominent in the fields of culture and arts, who "are not indifferent to disability problems" will carry the Torch.

Organizers promise a unique show in each city. In Lipetsk, the Torch will be lighted from the flame of a hearth in which the Romanov clay toy, famous throughout Russia, is calcined. In Pskov, a spark for the Torch will be produced by the best local blacksmiths. Nizhny Novgorod city folk suggested an "innovative way": the lighting of the Torch by means of a photochemical synthesis. A no less interesting technique will be tested in Volgograd: the famous experiment of Archimedrs will be reenacted in the city planetarium on March 4 to kindle fire from the sun by means of a system of mirrors. In Kemrrovo, a symbolic blast-furnace will be built specially for the Torch relay to "smelt" fire. The Torch relay phase in Tomsk Region will be started in Seversk from an installation in the shape of a burning heart which is intrnded "to combine the warmth of everyone to become the symbol of a kindly attitude to and support for the courageous sportsmen".

One of the Torch relay phases will take place in Britain, in the city of Stoke Mandeville, Buckinghamshire. This was announced by the leadership of the International Paralympic Committee way back in August last year. Beginning from 2014, the Torch relay phase will become an indispensable papr of all Paralympic Flame relays. Stoke Mandeville is reckoned the the place where Paralympic Games originated. The competitions held there in 1948 became precursors of the first Paralympic Games held in Rone in 1960. The competitions in Stoke Mandeville were organised by Lugwig Guttmans, a physician from Germany, who specialised in the treatment of patients with disturbances of locomotor apparatus.

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