Soviet Girl, 11, Flies to U.S. on Tour Saluting Samantha Smith

MOSCOW — Soviet schoolgirl Katerina Lycheva, saying she wants an “Earth without weapons,” flew to the United States today on a peace tour in memory of Samantha Smith, the American youngster who visited the Soviet Union in 1983.

The 11-year-old fifth-grader won the two-week trip to the United States for suggesting that her school establish a memorial “museum” to Samantha, who died in a plane crash in Maine last year.

Katya, as she is known to her friends, was to begin the tour in Chicago. She was also to visit New York, Washington, Houston and Los Angeles.

Tass said Katya “was childishly excited before her long voyage and did not conceal that she was proud of having been awarded the special Samantha Smith prize of the American Children as Peacemakers organization.”

Katya will carry letters to Samantha’s mother, gifts for American schoolchildren and a special present for President Reagan, although no meeting at the White House is planned. Samantha made her visit as a guest of the late Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov but she did not see the Kremlin leader.

At a news conference on the eve of her departure, Katya said she wants to tell American children “that all Soviet people, big and small, are against war.”

“I would like to see the Earth without weapons, with only kitchen knives left to peel potatoes and cut meat,” the blue-eyed blonde told reporters.

She will be accompanied on the trip by her mother, Marina, and a delegation of the Soviet peace committee.