San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Thousands pay final respects to Gorbachev
MOSCOW — Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who pushed drastic reforms that helped end the Cold War and precipitated the breakup of the Soviet Union, was buried Saturday after a farewell ceremony attended by thousands of mourners but snubbed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Kremlin’s refusal to declare a state funeral reflects its uneasiness about the legacy of Gorbachev, who has been venerated worldwide for bringing down the Iron Curtain but reviled by many at home for the Soviet collapse and the ensuing economic meltdown that plunged millions into poverty.
On Thursday, Putin privately placed flowers at Gorbachev’s coffin at a Moscow hospital where he died. The Kremlin said the president’s busy schedule would prevent him from attending the funeral.
Gorbachev, who died Tuesday at the age of 91, was buried at Moscow’s Novodevichy cemetery next to his wife, Raisa, following a farewell ceremony at the Pillar Hall of the House of the Unions, an opulent 18th century mansion near the Kremlin that has served as the venue for state funerals since Soviet times.
At the ceremony Saturday, mourners passed by Gorbachev’s open casket flanked by honorary guards, laying flowers as solemn music played. Gorbachev’s daughter, Irina, and his two granddaughters sat beside the coffin. The turnout was large enough that the viewing was extended for two additional hours.
Declaring a state funeral for Gorbachev would have obliged Putin to attend and would have required Moscow to invite foreign leaders, something that it was apparently reluctant to do amid soaring tensions with the West after invading Ukraine. Dmitry Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president in 2008-2012, showed up at the farewell ceremony. He then released a statement, referring to the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and accusing the U.S. and its allies of trying to engineer Russia’s breakup, a policy he described as a “chess game with Death.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who often has been critical of the Western sanctions against Russia, attended the farewell. The U.S., British, German and other Western ambassadors also attended.
Grigory Yavlinsky, the leader of the liberal Yabloko party who worked on economic reform plans under Gorbachev, hailed him for “offering people an opportunity to say what they thought — something that Russia never had before.”