New Delhi - Indian President Pratibha Patil Wednesday embarked on a visit to Russia, aiming to strengthen the strategic partnership and multi-faceted relations between the "close friends and partners," news reports said.

The Indian leader will also travel to Tajikistan during her week-long two-nation tour.

Patil, heading a large delegation including Petroleum Minister Murli Deora, was seen off at the airport in New Delhi by Vice President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, the PTI news agency reported.

During her four-day stay in Russia, Patil will hold talks with her Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on a range of bilateral, regional and global issues, foreign ministry officials said. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is also scheduled to meet her.

India's partnership with Russia is based on mutual trust, friendship and all-round cooperation and the visit will further consolidate the "deep and abiding" friendship between the two countries, Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said.

India's wide-ranging cooperation on defence, nuclear energy and space formed the solid bedrock of ties with Russia, Rao said.

Since the visit of Medvedev to India in December when key pacts were signed, a number of high-level exchanges of visits have taken place.

During Medvedev's visit, Russia and India inked an agreement on civil nuclear cooperation under which Moscow would build four new atomic reactors in the Kudankulam nuclear plant in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

Besides signing a joint declaration, India and Russia finalized pacts in the areas of space, defence, finance and tourism. Both countries also agreed to boost annual two
-way trade from the current level of 7 billion dollars to 10 billion dollars by 2010.

Energy also forms a key area in bilateral relations as India's state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation has acquired a 20 per cent stake in the Sakhalin-I Oil and gas project in Russia and invested 2.8 billion dollars in the project.

In the second leg of her tour, Patil will visit Tajikistan, the first-ever visit by an Indian president to the Central Asian region, and take part in the National Day celebrations of that country.

During her three-day stay in Dushanbe from September 6, Patil is scheduled to meet Tajikistan President Emomali Rakhmon, Rao said.

"The visit is an opportunity for reaffirming bilateral ties at the highest political level which will also give an opportunity for the two leaders to discuss bilateral and regional issues of mutual interest," Rao said. (dpa)