ALMATY: The Olympic flame arrived in "Apple City" on a sunny spring afternoon yesterday to a rapturous welcome.

Jiang Xiaoyu, executive vice-president of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG), holds the Olympic flame upon its arrival at Almaty airport April 1, 2008. [Agencies]

Almaty, which is nestled in a valley and means "rich with apple", is the first stop of the global relay which will also cover 20 cities outside China from yesterday to May 3.

The city is spruced up to witness the Olympic torch make its first-ever appearance on its "journey of harmony" in the vast landlocked central Asian nation.

"Our country deserves this honor because Kazakhstan citizens have spent so much time to get up to the very top of the Olympic pedestal," said Almaty Mayor Imangali Tasmagambetov.

Eighty torchbearers will carry the flame in this country, once a key staging post on the renowned Silk Road linking ancient China and Europe.

Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev is expected to join the relay, possibly by lighting the community cauldron before passing the torch to Athens Olympics boxing champion Bakhtiyar Artaev, the country's first torchbearer, sources close to the local Olympic Committee revealed.

Former boxer Ermakhan Ibraimov, who collected a bronze medal in the Atlanta 1996 Olympics and won gold four years later in Sydney, will also carry the torch.

"It's the first time, and a great honor to be a torchbearer for the Beijing Olympic Games. I'm very, very proud of it," he told a press briefing yesterday afternoon.

The relay is a new experience for the young country, which became independent only 17 years ago and where the median age is just over 29 years old.

It is also expected to enhance its relationship with China, its eastern neighbor.

Ibraimov said Chinese and Kazak boxers had participated in many joint training camps in recent years. The Chinese boxing team has made remarkable progress as a result of such exchanges; and today, Russia, China and Kazakhstan are the only three countries that have won 10 licenses in boxing, he said.

The second leg of the torch relay begins in Istanbul, Turkey, tomorrow afternoon.