Russians on Saturday paid their final respects to the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev
The funeral ceremony was held in Moscow without much fanfare and with President Vladimir Putin notably absent.
Gorbachev died on Tuesday, August 30, at the age of 91 following a “serious and long illness”, the hospital where he was treated said.
According to Channels Television, several thousand mourners queued up to quietly file past Gorbachev’s open casket as it was flanked by honour 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 it was where the body of Joseph Stalin first lay in state during four days of national mourning after his death in 1953.
With Russia facing increasing international isolation over its military action in Ukraine, many of those in attendance pointed to Gorbachev’s opening of the country to the rest of the world.
READ ALSO:
BREAKING: Ex-Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev dies at 91
The mourners were of all ages, some old enough to remember the years of Soviet stagnation before Gorbachev came to power, others young enough to have only lived in Russia under Putin.
In power between 1985 and 1991, he sought to transform the Soviet Union with democratic reforms, but eventually triggered its demise. Through his principles of glasnost and perestroika, he opened up Russia to the world.
One of the great political figures of the 20th century, he was lionised in the West for helping to end the Cold War and trying to change the USSR, but despised by many in Russia for the economic chaos and loss of global influence that followed the Soviet collapse.
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.
The Kremlin said Putin would not attend the funeral due to his “work schedule”.
There were few signs of an official presence at the ceremony, where Gorbachev’s daughter Irina Virganskaya sat to the side of the coffin with other family members.
Gorbachev was to be buried later Saturday at Moscow’s prestigious Novodevichy Cemetery next to his wife Raisa, who died from cancer in 1999.
The only senior foreign figure to attend was Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who laid flowers at the casket.
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 rule and for signing a landmark nuclear arms reduction pact with the United States.
Known affectionately in the West as Gorby, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.
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 toward peace and reform have been overshadowed by the economic troubles that followed the fall of the Soviet Union.