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French baroness to receive Russian passport ahead of 100th birthday

Her son told TASS that "the Russian passport would be the best birthday present" for his mother

MOSCOW, November 30. /TASS/. Ahead of her 100th birthday, President Vladimir Putin has granted Russian citizenship to French baroness Irene de Dreyer, whose family emigrated after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, the Kremlin said on Monday.

Baroness de Dreyer, set to turn100 on December 15, had asked Russian authorities for a passport of her homeland, which she left in 1920 at the age of five, the Kremlin said.

Her son, Foma, told TASS that "the Russian passport would be the best birthday present" for his mother, who was planning to go to Russia as soon as the document was in her hands.

The baroness’ father, Vladimir von Dreyer, was a general in the Russian imperial army and a member of a secret anti-Bolshevik organisation set up after the revolution. He died in Monte Carlo in 1967 and was buried in Paris.