Russia and Switzerland

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The unveiling of the repaired Mendeleyev Clock outside the Winter Palace, a gift from Switzerland for St Petersburg's 300th anniversary in 2003. (Keystone/Alessandro Della Valle) Keystone

The Swiss architect Domenico Trezzini (1670-1734) played a significant role in the building of St Petersburg. The Peter and Paul Fortress is one of his masterpieces. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky) Keystone

The Russian revolutionary and anarchist Mikhail Bakunin (seated, 1814-1876) with fellow participants at the International Congress in Basel in 1869. Bakunin died in Bern and is buried in Bremgarten cemetery. (Wikipedia)

Leftwing activists in Zurich founded the Progressive Football Association in 1976. The teams in Switzerland's alternative league had catchy names such as Red Star Bollwerk, Tractor Biel, FC Bakunin and Lokomotive 99. (Christoph Keller/From: Zurich 68 - Break up into uncertainty, 2008, hier + jetzt)

Lenin spent several periods in exile, including six years in Geneva, Bern and Zurich. (swissinfo/Christoph Balsiger) swissinfo.ch

Writer and butterfly researcher Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) lived in Montreux from 1961 to his death. (RDB/Horst Tappe) RDB

The Café Fanconi in Odessa with its ladies salon was one of the most elegant establishments of the city. Many confectioners and pastry chefs from eastern Switzerland, such as the Fanconis, chose the tsar's empire as an emigration destination. (From: Roman Bühler: Bündner [people from the eastern canton of Graubünden] in the Russian Empire, Desertina 2003)

Swiss restauranteur Dominique Riz à Porta started the Café Restaurant Dominique on Nevsky Prospekt in St Petersburg in 1841. This interior shot dates from 1910. Up to 1,500 guests were catered for daily. Apart from good food and moderate prices, the café offered the opportunity to read, discuss and play games. (From: Roman Bühler: Bündner in the Russian Empire, Desertina 2003)

Switzerland as host: In 1985 Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev met at a summt in Geneva. (Keystone/Mary Ann Fackelman) Keystone

In 1802 the Swiss-Italian architect Luigi Rusca (1762-1862) built the Rusca Portico, originally the entrance to a large arcade of shops. The building was torn down but later rebuilt according to the original plans in 1972. (swissworld.org/Karin Zaugg)

Nadezhda Suslova (1843-1918) Suslova was Zurich University's first female student. She graduated in medicine and was the first woman in a German-speaking country to receive a doctorate. (unizh.ch)

Writer and Nobel prizewinner Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) with his two sons arriving in Zurich in 1974 after being expelled from the Soviet Union. He spent two years of his exile in Switzerland - from 1974 to 1976. (Keystone) Keystone

Young emigrants from Puschlav in eastern Switzerland in Kiev, Ukraine. (Società Storica Val Poschiavono/Archivio fotografico Luigi Gisep)

Russian ice hockey stars Andrei Chomutov and Slava Bykov with Jean Martinet during the 1990 World Championship in Switzerland. Martinet, president of Fribourg's ice hockey club Gottéron, pulled off the most unbelievable transfer in the history of Swiss ice hockey when he signed the Russian "dream pair". (Bernard Aeby/Jean Martinet collection)

Swiss ice hockey goalkeeper Martin Gerber poses in the strip of his new Russian team Atlant Mytishchi at a training camp in Engelberg in 2009. (Keystone/Urs Flüeler) Keystone

Cheese testing in the Caucasus Mountains in 1910. Between 1795 and 1917 some 900 Swiss cheesemakers worked in the Russian Empire. (From: Gisela Tschudin: Swiss in the Russian Empire, pub. Hans Rohr, Zurich 1990)

General Suvorov's passage over the Alps in 1799. After a battle against the French, his army lost 6,000 men crossing four mountain passes. (Vasily Ivanovich Surikov, 1899/Russian State Museum, St Petersburg)

Russian cadets and Swiss mountain infantry soldiers take a break on the way to the top of the Kinzig Pass. The four-day march of 65 cadets from the Suvorov Academy in Moscow and the Swiss recruits followed in the footsteps of General Suvorov. (Keystone/Christoph Ruckstuhl) Keystone

Memorial service in 2007 at the Suvorov monument near Andermatt. (Keystone/Sigi Tischler) Keystone

Another Suvorov monument on the Gotthard Pass. (Reuters/Arnd Wiegmann) Reuters

Finalists in the 2008 Miss Russia competition in St Moritz. (Keystone/Arno Balzarini) Keystone

August 1945: Russian women in the Seewis refugee residence in canton Graubünden. (Swiss Social Archive)

Interned Russians leave Switzerland in 1945. (RDB) RDB

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From the past to the present, the ties between the two countries are varied and revealing.

War and peace, work and leisure, rich and poor, expected and unexpected: regular contacts between Switzerland and Russia go back to the 18th century.