The Sochi 2014 Organising Committee has unveiled the Celebration Cauldron for the Olympic Torch Relay, which will begin on 7 October in Moscow.
The lighting of the Celebration Cauldron will be the culmination of each day’s festivities across Russia during the 65,000km Relay, which will be the longest in the history of the Olympic Winter Games.
The concept behind the cauldron, which was developed by a team of renowned Russian designers, echoes that of the Olympic Torch and was designed in an identical style. The colours of the cauldron are bright red and silver: cold 'ice' sparkles in the sunlight and is topped off with a warm, dark scarlet 'flame'.
Each cauldron is 130cm tall, 60cm wide and the base is 110cm wide. The cauldron and its component parts have been put through numerous tests, including in extremely harsh weather conditions.
"The Celebration Cauldron of the Olympic Torch Relay is one of the main features of the Relay,” said Dmitry Chernyshenko, President of the Sochi 2014 Organising Committee. “Each region will have an opportunity to keep the cauldron. The cauldron will form a part of Games legacy and will remind the people of each region of this historic event – the longest Torch Relay in the history of the Olympic Winter Games.”
The Celebration Cauldron was unveiled as part of the festivities in Moscow’s Red Square marking the national holiday of the Russian Federation - “Russia Day”.