The Beijing Olympic flame arrived in Russia's second biggest city early Friday morning to start the third leg of an unprecedented global torch relay.

Jiang Xiaoyu (L), the executive vice president of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG), walks out of the cabin with the lantern which holds the Olympic flame in his hands at the airport in St. Petersburg, Russia, April 4, 2008. St. Petersburg is the third stopover of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games flame relay outside the mainland of China.

The Olympic flame, carried in a specially-designed lantern, was flied into St. Petersburg onboard a chartered plane from Turkey's largest city Istanbul.

The Olympic torch relay in St. Petersburg will start on Saturday morning from the Victory Square in the center of the city and covers 20.4 kilometers. Each of the 80 torch bearers is going to run 250 meters. The end of the race is the Hermitage Square where a ceremony is to be held.

(Xinhua News Agency April 4, 2008)