MOSCOW. June 23 (Interfax-AVN) - The banner of a Household Grenadier regiment will be returned during the forthcoming state visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the UK.
The Duke of Edinburg will hand over the banner in the Buckingham Palace garden, sources in the British Embassy in Moscow told Interfax.
Russian Empress Elizabeth gave the banner to the Grenadier regiment when it was formed in 1756, historians told Interfax. The regiment took part in the Turkish, Austrian-Prussian and French campaigns. It was incorporated into the Emperor's Guard by an ordinance of Emperor Alexander I in 1813.
Russian army banners were traditionally replaced every 100 years, and the Grenadier regiment received a new banner in 1856, historians said.
Some officers of the regiment joined the White Army after the 1917 Revolution. When the White Army was defeated, and the officers moved first to Bulgaria, and then Britain. They took the banner with them.
The flag was given to the Royal Guard's Grenadier regiment for temporary storage in 1957. The officers said that it could be returned to Russia after the collapse of the Soviet regime, if the new Russian administration formed a new regiment, or had a museum where the banner could be displayed.
St. Petersburg met the condition for displaying the flag, and so the banner will return to Russia, the sources said.