Descendant of tsars becomes first royal to marry in Russia since revolution

Reuters | St Petersburg

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

A descendant of Russia’s former imperial family married his Italian bride yesterday in the first royal wedding to take place on Russian soil since tsarist times more than a century ago.

GrandDukeGeorge Mikhailovich Romanov tied the knot with Victoria Romanovna Bettarini, an Italian, at St. Isaac’s Cathedral in Russia’s former imperial capital St Petersburg.

Russian Orthodox clergy conducted the elaborate ceremony, watched by hundreds of guests who included the groom’s mother, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna of Russia - the self-proclaimed heir to Russia’s imperial throne - and more than a dozen minor European royals.

George Mikhailovich’s great-grandfather, Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, fled Russia during the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, escaping first to Finland and later relocating with his family to Western Europe.

Russia’s last tsar, Nicholas II, his wife and five children were murdered by a revolutionary firing squad in July, 1918, in the cellar of a merchant’s house in Yekaterinburg, a city 1,450 km (900 miles) east of Moscow. George Mikhailovich, 40, was born in Madrid and has lived most of his life in Spain and France.