If there was one thing that puzzled Russians about Queen Elizabeth as they watched the television coverage of her visit, it was this: What is she for?


Studying this rather pleasant woman glide round Moscow and St Petersburg inher elegant Rolls Royce apparently to no great purpose, they asked the quite legitimate questions: Does she ever say anything or really do anything?


The answer, of course, is that her entire purpose in life is to do and say as little as possible -- but simply to be. Her role is that of an icon. She is there just to be there, to be transported around on special occasions, to be looked at, wondered at, revered by people who gaze on her and, like an icon, by her mere presence, make them want to behave better.


The prime example of this effect, and perhaps the proof of her near-miraculous powers -- is the unblemished behavior of Boris Yeltsin in her presence. After his impromptu conducting in Berlin and the famous snooze on the tarmac at Shannon Airport, it was widely feared -- especially by jumpy British Embassy officials -- that he might somehow make a spectacle of himself in the royal presence.


Anything from an over-emotional embrace to the proffering of a bottle at some inappropriately solemn moment, or even the making of some sort of improper suggestion was dreaded. In the event, however, he was a modest abstemious paragon. A further argument for the return of a Russian monarchy, perhaps.


Would that the queen had the same soothing and beneficial effect on her own family; or least her on eldest son and heir and his theatrical wife. The backdrop to the queen's tour, from the British, and certainly her, point of view, was the publication of Prince Charles's altogether too-frank authorized biography. It is a testimony to the queen's composure that she should smile and wave with her usual cool while Charles was washing some of the not-inconsiderable dirty family linen in public.


It was not the only thing she had to put up with here. While talking to a British student about Manchester, she made a casual and innocuous remark which, when relayed back to Britain's fevered popular press, was portrayed on front pages as a deliberate royal insult to that city. It was an incident that says far more about the witless news values of Britain's tabloids than it does about the queen or Manchester.


Whatever you think about monarchy as an institution -- and we happen to prefer heads of state you can elect and unelect -- you cannot but admire the queen's personal fortitude in the face of what must seem a never-ending nightmare scandal and hounding by the press.