Knesset Speaker Yuli-Yoel Edelstein is scheduled to travel to Moscow with a large delegation on Tuesday for an official three-day visit. His first official visit to the Russian capital as Knesset Speaker will be held, symbolically, 30 years after he was released from a Soviet prison in July 1987. The Knesset website says his personal tour of the Russian capital will include places where he was active as a Refusenik, the site of his arrest, the courthouse where his trial took place and the prison in which he was incarcerated.
The Knesset Speaker will be a guest of the Chairwoman of the Federation Council (upper house of the Russian parliament), Valentina Matviyenko, who visited the Knesset last year and signed a cooperation agreement with the Israeli legislature. During the visit, Speaker Edelstein is expected to addressing the council in both Hebrew and Russian. While in Moscow, Edelstein is also scheduled to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, State Duma (lower house of the Russian parliament) Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin and Russian lawmakers who are members of the friendship group with the Knesset. Edelstein is also scheduled to meet with the leaders of the Jewish community in Moscow and visit the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center.