Nuclear icebreaker delivering Olympic flame to North Pole

The Olympic flame is on its way to the North Pole on board of the world’s largest nuclear-powered icebreaker 50 Let Pobedy, representatives of the Communications Department of the Russian state corporation Rosatom told BelTA.

The icebreaker will have to travel over 5,000km from Murmansk to the North Pole and back within 15 days. The Olympic flame will be lit deep in the very heart of the Arctic Region as part of the first ever Olympic flame relay race Sochi 2014 – North Pole. The expedition is led by Artur Chilingarov, a merited explorer of the Arctic Region and the Antarctic Region. The Olympic flame will travel inside a special lantern during the journey.

The source said that the journey is a large-scale and very complicated project. The Russian state corporation Rosatom will take care of delivering the torch and lighting it as well as the safe deployment of the expedition onto the ice, food and medical services for the team and accompanying personnel of the Sochi 2014 Olympics organizing committee.

The part of the relay race that will reach the North Pole has gathered torch bearers from Russia and seven other Arctic nations: Canada, the USA, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Sweden, and Denmark. These countries have contributed a lot to researching the Arctic Region, preserving its natural riches, the fauna and the pristine environmental state.

President of the Sochi 2014 Olympics organizing committee Dmitry Chernyshenko believes that the Olympic flame’s journey to the North Pole makes the relay race a truly unique project. “The journey of the key symbol of the Olympics will reveal the captivating and incredibly fragile beauty of the planet’s most northern point to the world,” he stressed.

The Olympic flame race began in Moscow and will travel over 65,000km by road, by rail, by air, by a Russian troika of horses, and even by a reindeer sleigh.