Sacred flame blazes way through the 'city of apples'

The Olympic torch arrived in Almaty's Astana Square on Wednesday afternoon, the last site of the first stopover in the global torch relay. Yermakhan Ibraimov, men's 71kg gold medalist at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, served as the last torchbearer. After he lit the flame basin, an hour-long grand gala was held on the square with Jiang Xiaoyu, executive vice-president of BOCOG, and Liu Jigang, a BOCOG official, present.

Jiang addressed the gala, expressing his gratitude to the Kazakhstani government, the Almaty city government, the National Olympic Committee of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and local residents. He presented a gift to the local city government.

At about 18: 00 p.m. GMT, the flame embarked on its next stop to Istanbul aboard the specially designated Air China torch carrier with the Beijing Torch relay operation team. After six hours, the torch arrived in Istanbul at about 2: 00 a.m. GMT

The torch relay in Almaty started from the Medeo Mountain and torchbearers resorted to skiing, motorcycles, and horses to relay the torch. Riding horses is a tradition in Kazakhstan, an agricultural nation. About 200,000 people rushed to the streets to witness the torch relay in this nation with a total population of 13 million. Cheering on the streets, they waved hello to reporters from the official Olympic website.

This is the first time that an Olympic Torch has passed through this Kazakhstani city. Therefore, the national government focused special attention to the torch relay. The President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, carried the Olympic flame as the first torchbearer. As such, he is also the first torchbearer of the global 2008 Olympic Games torch relay outside China's mainland.