St Petersburg bids farewell to last tsar's mother

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St Petersburg (dpa) - Crowds paid their respects Wednesday to Maria Fyodorovna, the late mother of the last Russian tsar, as her remains lay in state prior to their burial near St Petersburg.

Hundreds of people queued at the Peterhof Palace by the northern Russian city to view the casket, which arrived Tuesday by ship from Denmark.

The remains of the Empress Maria, the mother of Tsar Nikolai II, were due to be interred Thursday at the Peter and Paul Cathedral next to her husband, Tsar Alexander III.

Patriarch Alexy II, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, will officiate at the service.

Born Danish Princess Dagmar in 1847, Maria Fyodorovna died in her native country in 1928 while in exile from her adopted Russian home following the Russian Revolution.

Denmark's Queen Margrethe II, her great-great niece, gave the final approval to the transfer of the remains to St Petersburg after years of negotiations with Russia.

"We all knew in my family that her heart remained in Russia. It was her last wish to be laid to rest there," the Danish queen said in Wednesday's edition of the Russian newspaper Izvestiya.

Her country will be represented at the burial ceremony by the Crown Prince Frederik and the Princess Mary.

As well as numerous distant relatives of the tsar's family, the Romanov's, Russian President Vladimir Putin was also expected to attend the burial service.

Maria Fyodorovna came to Russia in 1866 to wed Tsar Alexander III. She had six children, including Tsar Nikolai II, who abdicated in 1917 during the Russian Revolution. He and his family were later executed by the Bolsheviks.