Olympic torch arrives in Russia

The 2008 Olympic torch-bearing ceremony has kicked off in Russia's second largest city, Saint Petersburg. The honour of carrying the flame first was given to the 1952 Olympic shot-putting champion Galina Zybina. The 77-year-old is also a survivor of the Siege of Leningrad, when Nazi forces blockaded St Petersburg during WW2.

Russia’s 1952 shot-put gold medallist Galina Zybina was the first of 80 torch-bearers in a 20 kilometre (12 mile) relay from a World War II memorial in the south to the world-renowned Hermitage art museum in the city centre.

Around 2,000 people waved Olympic and Russian flags on Victory Square at the start of the relay in elaborate ceremony dedicated to the 81 city residents who have won Olympic gold medals.

Flanked by soldiers in period uniforms and a military band, city governor Valentina Matviyenko said it was “deeply symbolic” that Zybina, a survivor of the city’s 1941-43 Nazi blockade, was starting the relay.

The flame was to light ceremonial Olympic goblet at the conclusion of the event, part of a 19-country tour that has been dogged by controversy over Beijing’s treatment of its Tibet region.

After its arrival, the city administration kept the flame’s whereabouts secret, despite the lack of any obvious threat of disruption. China’s neighbour Russia is one of Beijing’s closest diplomatic allies.

But Russian human rights campaigners, who complain of abuses in their own country, on Friday called on athletes to protest against China’s rights record at the games.

The opposition Yabloko party said it would hold an unsanctioned demonstration outside the Chinese consulate in the city at 1200 GMT.

Pro-Tibet activists and other groups are planning demonstrations at key locations on the flame’s route, including London on Sunday, Paris on Monday and San Francisco on Wednesday.

Protests in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, on March 10 to mark a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule escalated into widespread rioting in the city, which then spread to neighbouring Chinese provinces populated by Tibetans.

Russia has said that China’s violent clamp-down is not an international diplomatic issue but rather an internal matter for the country to resolve.

It is the second time the city has been lit up by a flame from ancient Olympia. The first was in 1980 during the Moscow Olympic Games.