No state funeral, at least in the strictest sense of the word, for the last Soviet leader.

Mikhail Gorbachev , who died on August 30 at the age of 91 after a long illness, was greeted in Moscow by several thousand people and very few political leaders.

The most illustrious absentee was Vladimir Putin who passed the hospital two days ago to lay a bouquet of red roses next to the coffin of the deceased before leaving for a trip to Kaliningrad. Present were the former president Dmitry Medvedev , now deputy head of the National Security Council, and several celebrities including Alla Pugachiova, one of the most famous Russian singers.

The only European leader to go to the funeral home was the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban , while the other countries of the Union sent ambassadors, as well as Great Britain and the USA. For Italy, the charge d'affaires Guido De Sanctis was present.
Long line of people - mostly middle-aged - who queued to pay homage to the man who sanctioned the end of the USSR. The ceremony was attended by a military honor guard : two soldiers in red and blue full uniform, standing at attention on either side of a photograph of the deceased, welcomed the citizens who entered the House of Unions. Then a long journey through the halls of the palace decorated with pale green stucco. Finally, the entrance to the great Hall of Columns. The same where the last honors were paid to all Soviet leaders starting with Stalin, except Khrushov, who died when he had already been deposed.

At the end of the ceremony, the coffin came out escorted by soldiers, accompanied by family members and by the Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov, former editor of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, who has suspended publications since March because of his positions opposed to the operation in Ukraine. Then the departure for the monumental cemetery of Novodevichy , where Gorbachev was buried next to his wife Raissa to the sound of the national anthem performed by a military band, after an Orthodox priest had recited a prayer for him.

(Unioneonline / D)

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