Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the funeral of the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, denying the man who failed to prevent the collapse of the Soviet empire the state honors bestowed on Boris Yeltsin.
Gorbachev, idolized in the West for having allowed Eastern Europe to escape Soviet communist control, but little loved at home for the chaos unleashed by his “perestroika” reforms, will be laid to rest on Saturday after a public ceremony in the Hall of Moscow columns.
The great hall, within sight of the Kremlin, hosted the funerals of Soviet leaders Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin, and Leonid Brezhnev. Gorbachev will receive a military honor guard, but his funeral will not be state.
State television showed Putin on Thursday solemnly laying red roses next to Gorbachev’s coffin — which was left open in Russian tradition — at Moscow’s Central Clinical Hospital, where he died Tuesday at the age of 91.
Putin crossed himself in Russian Orthodox style before briefly touching the rim of the coffin.
“Unfortunately, the president’s work schedule will not allow him to do it on September 3, so he has decided to do it today,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. As indicated, the Gorbachev ceremony will have “elements” of a state funeral and the state will help organize it.
It will, however, stand in stark contrast to Yeltsin’s funeral, which was instrumental in sidelining Gorbachev as the Soviet Union fell apart and choosing Putin, a career KGB officer, as the most suitable man to succeed him.
When Yeltsin died in 2007, Putin declared a day of national mourning and, along with world leaders, attended a grand state funeral at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
