King And Queen Of Sweden To Arrive In Petersburg Wednesday

On Wednesday, King of Sweden Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia will arrive in St. Petersburg. Upon their arrival in the Pulkovo airport on Wednesday morning, the Swedish royal couple will lay flowers to the Monument to Heroical Defenders of Leningrad during the blockade of the city by Nazi troops in the time of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. After that, the royal motorcade will head for Tsarskoye Selo, a country-side residence of Russian emperors, where the King and Queen of Sweden will see the St. Catherine's Palace. In the afternoon, Carl XVI Gustaf will attend the Russo-Swedish seminar on information technologies. Participants in the seminar will discuss prospects for the development of partnership relations in the sphere of Internet-technologies. Particular attention will be paid to cooperation between Russia and Sweden in elaborating software programmes. No less than 200 companies from Sweden and Russia are expected to take part in the seminar. Sweden's ex-Prime Minister Carl Bildt will also attend the seminar. Later in the day, Queen Silvia will visit children's hospital 3. The hospital's head physician Galina Tyuleneva told RIA Novosti that the Queen intended to visit a just repaired nurse post for HIV-infected children with wards for 15 beds each, a playing room for children and a nurse's working place. Funds to repair the department were given by the Children's Fund with Queen Silvia as one of its patron. Queen Silvia will also visit the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet, examine the collection of the Academy's museum and attend a ballet class. Carl XVI Gustaf will visit the research-education centre at the Ioffe Institute of Physics and Technics which practises a non-stop education system grouping school studies, a higher-education institution and post graduate studies. Scientists give lectures to school children and students who do practical studies at research laboratories. Carl XVI Gustaf will be accompanied by Zhores Alfyorov, Director of the Institute, acting member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and 2000 Nobel Prize winner in physics. On Wednesday evening, the Swedish royal couple will visit the Hermitage, one of the world's largest museums of arts, culture and history. The foreign guests to the Hermitage will examine the halls of Rembrandt and Impressionists and will get an insight into the Russian culture of the second half of the 18th century. A concert at the Hermitage Theatre will be performed for the dignitary guests. Mats Liljefors from Sweden will conduct the concert to play music by Glinka, Haydn, Bizet, Tchaikovsky and works by Swedish composer Wilhelm Peterson-Berger. On Thursday morning, the Swedish royal couple will leave Petersburg for Arkhangelsk.