Saint Petersburg Flag to Be Raised on Highest European Peaks

The famous traveler from Saint Petersburg Vladimir Zverev, who raised the flag of Saint Petersburg on Mount Kilimanjaro on 23 December 2003, is planning to climb the highest and most famous mountains of Europe and raise the city flag on those peaks too. As Mr Zverev told a Rosbalt correspondent, this idea, which is devoted to the city's 300th anniversary, has already found favour with the city's committee for physical education and sport and the Committee for the 300th Anniversary of St. Petersburg is seeing it as one of the anniversary's official events.

'We are planning to travel to Europe on a bus designed to look like one of the famous buildings of Saint Petersburg,' said the traveler. 'Several well-known travelers and sportsmen from the city have already agreed to take part. We can take journalists with us and anyone else who is able to represent the city abroad in a worthy manner.'

According to Mr Zverev the whole trip will take about one and a half months. The bus will travel to Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, France, England, Spain, Portugal, Germany, and Scandinavia. The city flag will even be raised on Mont Blanc in France, which is the highest mountain in Europe at 4807 metres. In total, they plan to climb more than 20 mountains including Etna, Vesuvius, Athon, Olympus and Parnas. They will also visit Dracula's castle and the famous Arkady monastery in Greece.

'At the moment we are dealing with the financial side of things,' said Mr Zverev. 'We have enough time to prepare for the trip and we hope to set a definite date for departure within the near future.'