King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima Visit Russia

On Friday November 8th, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima started a two-day visit to Russia on the invitation of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin.

The visit comes on the occasion of the closing of the “Netherlands-Russia Year”. They were accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Frans Timmermans, and the Minister of Foreign Trade and Development, Lilianne Ploumen. The Royal Couple arrived in the late afternoon in Moscow and were received by President Putin in the Kremlin, where a dinner was held in their honour.

On Saturday November 9th, the King and Queen attended a meeting with Dutch and Russian CEOs, where Dutch and Russian Ministers were also present. In the afternoon King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima visited an exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery entitled “More Than Romanticism”. The exhibition was organized in cooperation between the Tretyakov Gallery and Teyler Museum as part of the year’s event. The exhibition shows the similarities but also the differences in painting in the Netherlands and Russia from the period 1800-1850.

The final event of the visit was a concert that was held by the Netherlands’ Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in the Tchaikovsky Conservatory. The Orchestra played Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor and A Hero’s Life, a tone poem by Richard Strauss.

The “Netherlands-Russia Year” was organized to emphasize the nations’ bilateral relations; the Netherlands offered Russia various economic, cultural and societal activities during the second half of 2013.

Filed under The Netherlands
Tagged Bilateral Relations, Concert, Exhibition, King Willem-Alexander of The Netherlands, Official Visit, President Putin of Russia, Queen Máxima of the Netherlands.