The police waited for us on the main road and then we started to run in the direction of Izium at 8:30. At the city border we were joined by two runners of the local marathon club. One of them told us about the history of the town while we ran.

As we passed a small church to our right our new guide told as an amazing story about this church. In the early years, the communists tried twice to blow it up with dynamite, but the church only “jumped” up and landed without being damaged.

Loud Russian march-band music, which brought to mind parades in front of the Kremlin in Moscow, was playing when we ran to the city-hall. Our friend from the marathon club said a few warm words while we passed the torch to the people assembled.

We went on to Chehuev to be welcomed there by the representative of the local sports committee and three traditionally dressed young girls who presented us a nice decorated bread, which is a typical welcome gift in this part of Europe.

The local sports representative also told us a few things about the town, such as the fact that archeologists recently found out that Chehuev is actually 1000 years older than previously thought. We ate the presented bread, took some pictures and went on to Kharkiv. Because of the wind it was not so hot and we enjoyed the running very much.

The best part of the day happened in the city of Kharkiv. At the city sign some thirty runners together with TV reporters and city representatives were already waiting for us. Martin gave a short interview and then we all ran together to the ceremony.

All the runners were enthusiastic and every one or two kilometers new groups of runners joined us with new energy and happiness. People on the bus stations were cheering us and kids on bicycles and line skates mixed with the group. The torch went from hand to hand and the spirit was simply fantastic.

So our group grew and grew and on the last kilometers we were at least 150 runners, cyclists and skaters, but still a bigger group of kids waited for us to run with us the last 500 meters to the city sports palace. We were approximately 200 – 300 people on the last meters uphill. An amazing view to behold; so many people running together. I think it was the biggest crowd we had so far this year.

We wish to thank all the People of Kharkiv and specially Petr Bogula, the head of department of sports for the Kharkov region, to Sergey Stepanenko, the head of department of sports of Kharkov, to Viktor Pavlenko, the head of Ukraine's ministry of Education and to all others for their warm and encouraging words and the organization of the event.

It was definitely one the biggest events on the Run this year and we were happy to see such an enthusiastic and eager response.

Kids from the local dancing school showed us astonishing dancing performances and after passing the torch around and taking a lot of pictures we got ready to leave for our sleeping place.

But we simply could not go before testing the trampoline station nearby. One other thing that contributed to our joy was that Martin, the team-leader of the international team, finally got his visa for the entrance to the Russian Federation, which is planned for tomorrow.

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Distance: 152km

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