MOSCOW, June 3. /TASS/. Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan has described her visit to Russia as historic.

Opening a meeting with her Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin, she noted that it had been more than half a century since a Tanzanian leader last visited the country.

"My visit has historical significance for me personally and for the whole country," Suluhu Hassan said. "The last [Tanzanian president] to pay a state visit [to the USSR] was Julius Kambarage Nyerere, the founding father of our state, in 1969."

She said she had come to Russia to discuss cooperation and the sustainable development of the peoples of the two countries. Also, the Tanzanian leader thanked Russia, as the successor of the USSR, for its enormous contribution to the struggle for African freedom in the 1960s.