Parts of Chelyabinsk meteorite will be embedded in special commemorative medals that will be given to the 10 gold medalists at the Sochi Olympics on February 15.
The winter sports stars will get their extra medals exactly one year after a huge chunk of space rock crashed into a lake in the Urals, central Russia.
The 5ft-long rock was later hauled up from icy Lake Chebarkul.
Nearly 40 more of the meteorite medals will be sold to private collectors.
Parts of Chelyabinsk meteorite will be embedded in special commemorative medals that will be given to the 10 gold medalists at the Sochi Olympics
The asteroid explosion over Russia released as much energy as an estimated 500,000 tonnes of TNT, sending a shockwave twice around the globe. It caused widespread damage and injured more than 1,000 people in the Chelyabinsk area.
A meteorite chip is being embedded in the centre of each commemorative medal by specialists at a workshop in Zlatoust, in the Chelyabinsk region, Russian media report.
Russian TV news showed the medals being made in a video report.
The local news website Novyy Region says the medal-crafting technique dates back to 1815 and is very laborious.
The special medals will have a protective nickel coating and will also be adorned with gold and silver.
In total 1,400 medals will be awarded at the Sochi Games, which start next week, and about 100 more will be kept at the International Olympic Committee (IOC) headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, Radio Golos Rossii reports.
[youtube lvrac0VrmKA 650]
Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has called for foreign countries to boycott February’s Sochi Winter Olympics, hours after she was freed from jail.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova dismissed the amnesty law that set her free, saying it was a “cosmetic measure”.
She and band-mate Maria Alyokhina, who was also freed, said the prison system needed wider reform and promised to continue anti-government action.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Ayokhina were jailed in 2012 after singing a protest song in a Moscow cathedral.
The act was seen as blasphemous by many Russians, and was condemned by the Orthodox Church.
But their conviction for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” was criticized by rights groups, anti-government activists and foreign politicians.
The amnesty passed last week aimed to free some 20,000 prisoners.
Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has called for foreign countries to boycott February’s Sochi Winter Olympics
Both Pussy Riot members said their anti-government stance had not softened, and both promised to form a human-rights group to fight for prison reform.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who was freed from a prison hospital in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, immediately called for a boycott of the Sochi Games.
“What is happening today – releasing people just a few months before their term expires – is a cosmetic measure,” she said.
“That includes the case of Khodorkovsky, who didn’t have much time left on his prison term. This is ridiculous.”
She said far more people should be set free.
“I’m calling for a boycott, for honesty. I’m calling [on Western governments] not to give in because of oil and gas deliveries from Russia.”
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 24, labeled the Russian state a “totalitarian machine” and said prison reform was the starting point for reform of Russian society.
Maria Alyokhina, released in the city of Nizhny Novgorod, 280 miles east of Moscow, told Russian TV that the amnesty was “a profanation”.
[youtube ApS1Ip1ebZE 650]
The Olympic flame has arrived to the North Pole aboard a Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker, the Sochi Winter Games organizers say.
The Sochi organizing committee said in Friday’s statement that the torch relay reached the North Pole on October 19.
The Olympic flame has arrived to the North Pole aboard a Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker
Russian Polar explorer Artur Chilingarov, who led the mission, lit a special bowl at the North Pole sign. The ceremony involved 11 torch bearers from several countries.
The icebreaker, which departed from Russia’s Arctic port of Murmansk, made the journey in about 91 hours, the quickest such trip ever.
For most of the 39,000-mile torch relay, the longest in the history of the Olympics, the flame travels by plane, train, car and even reindeer sleigh, safely encased inside a lantern.
[youtube YhjIFIDKDmk 650]
