Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich Romanov

MIAMI - The heir to the Russian throne, Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich Romanov, collapsed yesterday at a news briefing and died. He was 74.

The grand duke was in Miami to talk with a forum of civic and business leaders today. He was meeting with members of the Spanish-language media yesterday morning when he fell unconscious.

The cause of death was not immediately known.

The grand duke collapsed after saying he believed reestablishment of the imperial family as a presence in Russia was possible because he was receiving hundreds of letters from young Russians urging his return, said Ariel Remos, a reporter for Diario Las Americas.

Romanov's father was Kirill Vladimirovich Romanov, cousin of the last czar - Nicholas II. He was a direct descendant of Czar Alexander II, who ruled from 1855 to 1881. Because of the close relationships between royal families in the 19th century, the grand duke was also a descendant of Britain's Queen Victoria.

Romanov was born in exile in Finland in 1917, the year Nicholas II was forced to abdicate, and had been living in Paris.

Romanov was a landowner in Brittany, France, and kept in touch with other Russian emigres, but he "never lost hope of going back," he told The New York Times recently.

The grand duke's heir as head of the Russian imperial family is his only child, Grand Duchess Maria, a 38-year-old graduate of Oxford University who lives in Madrid.