Israel to hand Stolen Romanov building in Jerusalem to Russia

The Israeli government voted on Sunday to hand over Sergei House, a Jerusalem property of the Romanov family which ruled Tsarist Russia, to the Russian state, government spokesman Mark Regev said.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is expected to announce the long-anticipated news, which follows complex negotiations, when he visits Russia on Monday.

"This property belonged to Prince Sergei. It was a private property ... so the Russian state was not necessarily entitled to recover the property," Alexandre Zanemonets, a university professor in Byzantine history, told AFP.

The building in the heart of west Jerusalem has long-term tenants whose departure has yet to be negotiated, explained Eitan Margalit, a diplomat at the Israeli foreign ministry.

It would then revert to a home for growing number of Russian Orthodox pilgrims to the Holy Land.

Opened in 1890, Sergei House provided five-star lodgings for aristocratic pilgrims. During Soviet times, the number of Russian pilgrims fell to less than 1,000 a year but numbers have been climbing since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Russia's Supreme Court on Wednesday formally rehabilitated the country's last tsar, Nicholas II, declaring that he and his family were unlawfully killed by Soviet authorities.

The decision was welcomed by the Russian Orthodox Church and descendants of Nicholas II including Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, who spearheaded the campaign to rehabilitate the imperial Romanov family.

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