Czarina makes final trek to Russia

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Czarina Maria Feodorovna's descendants joined Danish royals, officials and dignitaries Saturday to bid farewell to the mother of Russia's last emperor, 78 years after she died in exile in Denmark.

The casket of the Danish-born Feodorovna — who was Princess Dagmar before marrying Czar Alexander III — was then paraded through the Danish capital before being put on a ship to St. Petersburg. The casket will be buried alongside relatives at the Peter and Paul Cathedral in the former Russian imperial capital, where a ceremony is planned next week.

"Empress Dagmar now will be begin her final journey to the country she loved so much," Paul Kulikovsky said about his great-great-grandmother during the solemn ceremony at the Roskilde Cathedral, west of Copenhagen. Feodorovna is known in Denmark as Empress Dagmar.

Her descendants, including members from the Kulikovsky and Romanov families, sat on the right side of the coffin draped in a yellow Russian imperial flag inside the cathedral. On the left sat Denmark's Queen Margrethe, Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary, among other members of the royal family.

A Russian government delegation, headed by Culture Minister Alexander Sokolov and deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Titov, also attended the ceremony in the 12th century red-brick cathedral.

To end the 50-minute Lutheran service, Royal Chaplain Christian Thodberg asked for "peace to shine over Empress Dagmar."

Ten officers from Denmark's Royal Life Guard and the Russian Presidential Guard then carried the coffin out of the cathedral 25 miles west of Copenhagen, where Maria Feodorovna's casket has been resting alongside Danish kings and queens since her death in 1928.

A hearse took the remains to Copenhagen, where it was transferred to an open horse-drawn carriage that was escorted by a mounted army regiment through the city. Outside Copenhagen's Russian Alexander Nevski church, orthodox priests stood on the sidewalk burning incense and chanting prayers for the dead.

The coffin was then taken to the harbor and put aboard a Danish navy support ship that left Copenhagen shortly after. It is due to arrive in St. Petersburg on Sept. 26, and a ceremony is planned in the Russian city two days later.

Since the end of the Cold War, the Romanov family has been working for the remains of Maria Feodorovna to be sent to Russia.

Born in 1847 as Princess Dagmar, the daughter of Denmark's King Christian IX and Queen Louise, she converted from the Lutheran Church to the Russian Orthodox faith when she married Alexander. The couple had six children, including Nicholas II, who became czar in 1894 and was executed a year after the Bolshevik revolution.

Nicholas II and his family were killed in 1918, 16 months after he abdicated the throne. His remains were ceremoniously buried in 1998 in St. Petersburg.

Feodorovna fled St. Petersburg in 1917 and reached Copenhagen through the Crimean Peninsula and London.