Siberian children to start the Olympic flame's longest ever journey

The honour comes because the city, capital of the Republic of Sakha, also known as Yakutia, is twinned with Olympia in Greece. 

'Children from Olympia's twin towns carry the flame after it is lit in ancient Olympia', said Yakutsk mayor Aisen Nikolaev.

'Last year, for example, after the flame was lit for the London Olympics, children from a twin town in Japan carried the flame.'

He was speaking in Greece on a trade delegation. 

'There's already an agreement that the flame for the Sochi Olympics will be carried by children from Yakutsk,' Nikolaev said, according to RIA Novosti.

The torch relay for Sochi 2014 will start on 7 October and is set to be the longest in history. The Games will run from February 7 to 23 next year. 

The Sakha Republic is almost as large as India and is Russia's largest constituent region. 

Yakutsk - the country's diamond capital - has a population of 270,000 and is built on permafrost.