Queen Elizabeth II arrived in Moscow Monday for a four-day visit that marks the first trip ever to Russia by a reigning British monarch.
Buckingham Palace officials said the visit, said to be one of the most important foreign trips of the queen's reign, would improve ties between the two countries.Kremlin international affairs adviser Dmitry Rurikov said the visit was "recognition that Russia is on the way to democracy and reforms."
Relations were strained by seven decades of communism that began with the killing of Russia's last czar and his family, to which Britain's royals were
related. Rurikov said the queen's visit signaled a "prestigious recognition that Russia is a democratic state which ensures and respects human rights and
freedoms." The queen, accompanied by her husband Prince Philip, the duke of Edinburgh, will stay in Kremlin guest quarters and visit the historic sights of Moscow - Red Square, the famous onion-domed St. Basil's Cathedral, the Tretyakov Gallery - and will also attend the ballet "Giselle" at the Bolshoi Theater.
The queen will meet President Boris Yeltsin on several occasions as well as Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II.
The trip began against a background of sensations raging in Britain over the cooperation of Prince Charles with a biography revealing intimate details of royal family life and his marriage to Princess Diana. (Story on A1.)