16.11 Sochi Olympic Flame Alights from Plane for the Last Time

MOSCOW, November 16 (R-Sport) - Having reached Russia's most eastern extremities with the considerable help of air travel, the Sochi 2014 Olympic flame will tentatively zigzag back across the vast northern nation by train.

Continuing its record-breaking 56,000 kilometer, 123-day odyssey that started on Red Square on October 7, the flame alighted from a plane for the last time in Vladivostok on Saturday.

The jet-setting stage of the relay began in St. Petersburg on October 29 and saw the flame hug some of the northern coastline before reaching the most easterly point of Anadyr and looping back to Vladivostok via the volcanic peninsula of Kamchatka and oil-rich Sakhalin Island.

Over 19 days it took 12 separate flights on an Airbus A320 belonging to state-controlled carrier Aeroflot, covering 25,455 kilometers in total.

Now the flame will mostly take a Russian Railways train back across the southern fringes of the country, making more than 80 stops en route to the Black Sea resort of Sochi for the February 7 opening ceremony.