MOSCOW —
Russians on Saturday paid their final respects to the last leader of the Soviet
Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, in a ceremony held in Moscow without much fanfare and
with President Vladimir Putin notably absent.
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Several thousand
mourners queued up to quietly file past Gorbachev’s open casket as it was
flanked by honor guards under the Russian flag in the historic Hall of Columns.
The hall has long
been used for the funerals of high officials in Russia and was where the body
of Joseph Stalin first lay in state during four days of national mourning after
his death in 1953.
After several hours
the coffin was taken out of the hall in a procession led by Dmitry Muratov, the
Nobel Peace Prize-winning editor-in-chief of independent newspaper Novaya
Gazeta, which Gorbachev helped found.
The coffin was
taken to Moscow’s prestigious Novodevichy Cemetery, where it was lowered into
the grave to the sounds of a military band playing the Russian national anthem
and a gun salute.
Gorbachev was
buried next to his wife Raisa, who died from cancer in 1999.
The Kremlin had
said Putin would not attend Saturday’s funeral due to his “work schedule”.
Gorbachev died on
Tuesday at the age of 91 following a “serious and long illness”, the hospital
where he was treated said.
In power between
1985 and 1991, he sought to transform the Soviet Union with democratic reforms,
but eventually triggered its demise.
One of the great
political figures of the 20th century, he was lionized in the West for helping
to end the Cold War and trying to change the USSR.
But many in Russia
despised him for the economic chaos and loss of global influence that followed
the Soviet collapse.
Orban in attendance
He had spent most of the
last few decades out of the political
limelight and his death this week was barely acknowledged in official circles
in Russia.
State television on
Thursday showed images of Putin, alone, laying a bouquet of red roses near
Gorbachev’s open casket at the hospital where he died.
Putin had a call
with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday, the Kremlin said,
during which the two discussed Ukraine and Erdogan passed on his condolences
for Gorbachev’s death.
The only senior
foreign figure to attend was Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who laid
flowers at the casket.
“Many things were
needed for Central Europe to get rid of communism peacefully, without loss of
life or bloodshed. One of them was Mikhail Gorbachev. God rest his soul!” Orban
said in a post on Facebook.
Before the Ukraine
conflict, Orban had one of the closest relationships with Putin of any EU
leader, but the Kremlin said there were no talks planned during his visit to
Moscow.
After Gorbachev’s
death, tributes poured in from Western capitals, where he is remembered for
allowing countries in Eastern Europe to free themselves from Soviet domination
and for signing a landmark nuclear arms reduction pact with the US.
Known
affectionately in the West as “Gorby”, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in
1990.
Berlin flags at half-mast
Flags were also flying at
half-mast in Berlin on Saturday, in memory of the man who held back Soviet
troops as the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.
In Russia, Gorbachev’s steps towards peace and
reform have been overshadowed by the economic troubles that followed the fall
of the Soviet Union.
Putin, who called the Soviet collapse the greatest
geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century, has spent much of his more than
20-year rule reversing parts of Gorbachev’s legacy.
By cracking down on independent media and political
opposition, critics say, Putin has worked to undo Gorbachev’s efforts to bring
“glasnost”, or openness, to the Soviet system.
And with the
launch earlier this year of the military campaign in Ukraine, he has sought to
reassert Russian influence in one of the countries that won its independence
when the Soviet Union fell apart.
On the streets of Moscow this week some expressed
their continued anger and bitterness at Gorbachev, but those who turned up for
Saturday’s funeral paid tribute to his legacy.
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