Olympic flame lights up famous Russian diamond mine ahead of spacewalk

The torch for The Winter Olympic Games 2014, to be held in Sochi, Russia, lit Friday one of the country’s most famous diamond mines, in operations until 2004, as part of its record-breaking relay across the country.

The Olympic flame made it to the base of the 525-meter deep Mir mine, once the largest open pit diamond mine in the world, from where it will travel to Sakha’s capital city of Yakutsk, east of Moscow, transported by dogs and reindeers sleighs.

Once at the destination, it will be lit up at the same time a crew of three astronauts from the International Space Station (ISS) stage the torch first- ever space walk.

The U.S. space agency said in a press release that NASA Television would provide live coverage of the spacewalk beginning at 9:00 a.m. EST.

The torch, relay for the February 7-23 Games started on Moscow’s Red Square in Moscow on October 7. The icon of international cooperation through sports competition will go to each of Russia’s 83 regions on its 56,000-kilometer trip.

Image from WikiMedia Commons