Dowager grand duchess of Russia dead at 95

MADRID, May 24 (UPI) -- Leonida Georgievna Romanov, the dowager grand duchess of Russia, died in Madrid Monday, a spokesman for the Romanov house announced. She was 95.

Romanov, descended from the House of Mukhrani, a collateral branch of the Bagrationi dynasty, is to be buried near her husband, Duke Vladimir, pretender to the Russian throne, in St. Petersburg's Peter and Paul Fortress on a date to be announced soon, RIA Novosti said.

Also buried there are the duchess's relatives -- Russia's last tsar, Nicholas II, his wife, their four daughters and son, who were shot to death by Bolsheviks in 1918. The family was canonized in 2000.

The cause of the duchess's death was not reported.